A Cup of Joe
by OughtaKnowBetter
Summary: Two SG teams. Two archeologists. One retrograde civilization. Some really big problems. Story complete.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: you know the drill—all theirs, nothing mine. Heavy sigh.

A Cup of Joe

By OughtaKnowBetter

"Where'd you learn to cook so well, Dr. J?" Major Raslow asked, leaning back on his arms and stuffing the last crumbs of whatever into his mouth. He wasn't sure what it was, but he was damn sure it tasted good and he was going to get as much of it as he could. And, seeing as how he was the second-highest ranking officer in camp as well as being the second-largest person, he got the lion's share.

"Egypt," Daniel replied with a hesitant grin, collecting the dirty dishes. He set a pot of water on for coffee.

"Naw, that can't be right," Lieutenant Abelard said, surprised. "I've been to Iraq, and they don't cook like this in the Middle East. They use mint, and cous cous, and bean stuff. No way this is Mid-East cooking."

Captain Malberg snickered. As the only other anthropological archeologist in camp—and, truth be told, the entire planet—she knew where Dr. Daniel Jackson, archeologist, Egyptologist, and a few other –ologists, had gotten his cooking skills: graduate school. A type of school, she knew, which regularly sent expeditions to uncivilized parts of Earth to collect things that would add to the known history of mankind. Those expeditions, funded by cash-strapped universities and foundations, rarely contained enough money to hire a cooking staff. Graduate students, otherwise known as indentured serfs, were pressed into service. It was an unproven theory among those graduate students that superior culinary skills could cut as much as a year off their post-graduate trek to the Ph.D.

"I used to be the low man on digs." Daniel confirmed her snicker. "You get to be pretty good with a can of beans when you have to."

"Whatever." Abelard waved around his fork. "Why can't you cook this good, Malberg? Aren't you an archeologist, too?"

"You ought'a be better at it," Lieutenant Tarkov chimed in, trying to get in his own jabs. "Cooking is a womanly chore."

On the other side of the campfire, Major Samantha Carter rolled her eyes. It looked pretty dramatic, too; big blue eyes tended to do that. She added a pointed groan for good measure, to make sure that both Abelard and Tarkov took her meaning.

Barbara Malberg snorted loudly, tossing the remnants of her meal onto the fire to burn clean. Physically, Malberg was far more the military mold than Carter was. No one would call her pretty; handsome perhaps, if she spent a day in the hands of experts. "Brick wall" was the title some bestowed upon her, though not within earshot of the lady or her teammates. Malberg was, as was Carter, like a sister to the others. And, like big brothers everywhere, her teammates were more than willing to defend her reputation to outsiders.

But not amongst themselves.

"You've tasted my cooking, Tarkov," Malberg drawled. "You want me to take my turn tomorrow night?"

"Not a chance," Tarkov said hastily. "Jackson here makes a far better woman than you!"

There was a guffaw of laughter at that from both men, with a politely restrained snigger from Major Raslow. Colonel O'Neill threw him a sharp look, unfortunately lost in the night's darkness. It was one thing to joke among themselves when off-duty in a bar somewhere. On a mission this was crossing the boundaries of military courtesy. Sure, Daniel Jackson was a civilian, but he was _O'Neill's_ civilian. And there was something about the way Daniel hunched his shoulders that set O'Neill's teeth on edge. It was that _here come the bullies after the geeky nerd_ look, but it was followed by Daniel reasserting control over his body language: _that's in the past. I'm a well-respected member of the team now_. O'Neill relaxed. Daniel had it under control.

Captain Malberg was actually the butt of the joke, and she seemed to be taking it in stride. O'Neill had no doubt that if she had been offended, Tarkov would've landed on his backside a few times, courtesy of a hefty feminine fist. Malberg took the martial arts part of her job seriously, as seriously as Carter, and O'Neill knew strong men who would refuse to get on the sparring mat with her, even in practice. They were the smart ones.

Teal'c leaned over to Major Carter, confusion edging out the usual impassive expression he habitually wore. "This Earth custom of attempted humiliation over food preparation puzzles me, MajorCarter. On Chulak, a woman who can provide her mate and family with nutritious sustenance is highly honored. Is it not the same on Earth? Just last week Colonel O'Neill escorted me to an establishment where the food was prized as a delicacy. 'Buffalo wings' I believe was the name of the dish; a fervently spiced protein offering accompanied by Colonel O'Neill's favorite beverage, beer. I understood the cook—who was male—to be a significant asset to the establishment, and the owner of the business to take great pains to advertise the fact." He considered, with an additional question coming to the forefront. "Also, the information that I have been able to obtain on the buffalo insists that such creatures do not possess wings, but are instead quadripedal in nature, with hooves."

"Al's Bar and Grill," came a quiet, wistful murmur from around the fire. "_Damn_ fine wings."

Carter ignored her colonel. She opened her mouth to try to enlighten the Jaffa, then shut it again. How to explain that the two junior members of SG-14 were taunting both Malberg and Carter as well as Daniel out of sheer boredom? Sure, it was over the line, but making an issue of it would cause more problems than it solved. And to explain it to Teal'c would require a discussion of the communication chasm between men and women, as well as the history of women's rights. She could be here all night and still not get it right. If Teal'c had asked Daniel, he'd get a better answer but the lecture would've gone on for six months to a year. "They were complimenting Daniel's cooking," she finally said.

Teal'c still didn't understand, but he'd worked with these particular Tau're long enough to be able to decipher certain comments and actions. This one from MajorCarter meant, _I can't explain right now_. Teal'c hoped that MajorCarter could explain later, for he too noticed that DanielJackson had reacted like the runt of a _talfass_ litter when teased by its larger kin.

On Chulak, where Teal'c had grown up, scholarship was not a trait that was sought after in a mate of either sex. A strong body, fast reflexes; these were the attributes that made for a successful Jaffa. But over the last few years Teal'c had learned to value the intelligence that both DanielJackson and MajorCarter possessed as well as their Tau're sense of honor. Both were certainly far better beings than the false gods known as Goa'uld that Teal'c had once served. He restrained himself from spitting in disgust; there were no Goa'uld present save for the immature one in his peritoneal sac.

O'Neill broke the stalemate, effectively closing down the smart remarks. "Who's up for the first watch?"

Daniel determinedly put up his hand. "It's my turn. I didn't do any last night."

"And there's a good reason for that, Daniel." O'Neill spoke to the civilian, but his words were aimed at the other SG team. "You're doing all the important work around here, you and Malberg. You don't notice her taking a watch either, do you?" It was a rhetorical question. "The rest of us are here to keep you safe and productive. Which means eight hours of sleep for both of you, so you can hurry up and get the translating over and done with so we can all go home to soft, cushy beds and hot showers. Besides, you cooked. You did your share of the trail work." He turned a glare on Abelard and Tarkov. "Why don't the two of you wash the dishes?" It was not a request. And it should have come from Major Raslow, to whom they both directly reported, but Raslow didn't look as though he were going to intervene.

Colonel O'Neill made sure to discuss the issue with Major Raslow. Turning over the watch in the dead of night was the perfect time; none of their subordinates were awake to listen in.

Raslow did not respond as O'Neill had expected. "What's the matter, O'Neill? Carter get her girlie feelings hurt? Went whining to you? I run a military outfit, O'Neill. All I saw was a little horseplay, and Malberg handing out as good as she got. I don't make allowances just because someone pees sitting down."

O'Neill gritted his teeth. Raslow wasn't going to make this easy, and it was clear that the shit was flowing downhill. "Nobody's whining, Raslow. But I _am_ enforcing military discipline. You can run your team any way you like that gets the job done and your people back in one piece, but I'm here now, and I'm in command. And if I say that every person on this mission—Carter, Malberg, Jackson, or anybody else—gets the respect they're entitled to, then they get it. Clear?"

"Over-compensating because you got stuck with the civilian, Colonel?"

O'Neill's jaw nearly hit the dirt. He made it do a couple of push-ups to get his astonishment back under control. "Raslow, my man is here because yours couldn't get the job done. You send back a message that this world was declared _persona non grata_ by the Goa'uld, then you can't figure out why in over a week. Which is why _General _Hammond thought you needed help. And, frankly, from what I've seen, I have to agree. You haven't even gotten to first base with the natives, let alone the translations on those pillars."

"Malberg would've gotten it done. She was half-way through it."

"She hasn't even cracked the first three words, and you know it. Malberg's a fine anthropologist, but Jackson's the man who opened the Stargate. This is not a contest, Raslow. This is about getting the job done. And right now the job is translating the stuff on those pillars that talks about weapons that we can use against the Goa'uld." O'Neill straightened up. This was getting out of control. He squared his shoulders, reasserting his authority. "Major Raslow, you keep your people in line. Not just here, on this mission, but anywhere and everywhere that I can see 'em. That clear?" His voice cracked like a whip, reprimanding a subordinate.

Raslow flinched. "Yes, sir."

"And while you're at it, have Abelard put back the coffee he stole from Jackson's pack. That's high octane fuel for my _civilian_ archeologist, and it keeps him working at a pace that would run any two other men into the ground including yours." O'Neill paused for effect. "Or didn't you think I noticed Abelard zipping around like a hamster on an exercise wheel?"

Even the dark night couldn't hide the red flush of embarrassment.

* * *

"With your permission, Colonel O'Neill."

The day was young, the sun barely above the horizon, and everyone was ready to put in another day's work. Try as he might, O'Neill couldn't find any hint of sarcasm in Raslow's voice, though he tried. Raslow was simply a very fine actor, he decided. The sarcasm was there, just hidden so well that O'Neill couldn't call him on it.

"Be my guest."

Whatever his other problems, O'Neill couldn't fault the major on his command. "Abelard, Tarkov, take the perimeter. We're leaving you in charge of the camp; I want to find Dr. Jackson and Teal'c in good condition when we return." Was there a sneer there? A back-handed dig? O'Neill couldn't find it. "Malberg, help Major Carter get outfitted for our hosts. Major, I assume you got the costume specs we sent back?"

"Yes." Carter allowed a moue to cross her face. "Do I really have to wear all that stuff? I could move better in the gown I wore to my senior prom. With two inch heels, I might add."

"'fraid so, Major." Malberg smiled in commiseration, "assuming you want to treated as an equal on this world. Clothes really do make the man, or, in this case, woman. You wear your current uniform, the Sorority Ladies will treat you like a man. And, believe me, here on P6292, that can be pretty insulting. Sorry, colonel. No offense intended."

"Which brings us to our half of our trading team." Raslow turned to O'Neill. "Shall I refresh your memory about the reports we sent back?" Which was code for _I'm not going to embarrass you in front of everyone else by proving that you haven't read my reports and done your homework, Colonel, sir!_

"Oh, I think I can remember the juicy parts," O'Neill said easily, with just a hint of ice. Last night's discussion hadn't yet worn off from either man. "Something about men being seen and not heard?" Under the circumstances, he was grateful that he'd kept half an ear open while Daniel had burbled on about the unusual social structure that Malberg had found on this planet. He congratulated himself inwardly on picking the right time to pay attention. Usually everything the archeologist said was either so erudite or annoying or so incredibly boring that O'Neill didn't listen.

"That's right." Raslow's face didn't show a hint of the frustration he must be feeling. O'Neill looked forward to playing poker with the man. It would be a game to be remembered. "No man is permitted to speak in the presence of women. Women hold all the power here, tell the men what to do."

"Isn't that always the way?" O'Neill quipped.

"Not in my household." Raslow moved on. "Malberg thinks that the men speak among themselves when out of sight, but none of us have ever heard them so that's not a given. We trade for supplies, for food and artifacts that Malberg wants. We give them trinkets, beads and things that they find pretty. They're thrilled over a sheaf of copy paper. Go figure."

Malberg returned with Carter in tow. "I'm coming to the conclusion that this is a retrograde civilization," she chimed in.

"Deteriorating technology," Daniel translated in an aside for Teal'c, that O'Neill made a point to overhear. "The writings on the pillars we're working on contain references to high tech toys, but we're not seeing any of them in the present culture, suggesting that this world is moving culturally backwards at the present time. Their version of the Dark Ages."

Carter stepped into the light. After the lecture he'd given Raslow last night, O'Neill refused to give a wolf whistle, but he found it hard to restrain himself. Carter had reappeared, decked out as a proper lady of P6292. Everything was covered, but still managed to leave little to the imagination. Tight curves of a gentle beige hugged every crevice, and how had Stores managed to put so much embroidery on the bodice with only twenty-four hours notice? O'Neill hadn't thought that anyone in Stores knew how to use a needle and thread. The skirt swished around her ankles, and Carter had given up her comfortable army boots for dainty ivory slippers that looked like they wouldn't last more than a mile on the trail.

Malberg too had undergone a transformation, trading in her BDU's for a midnight blue gown with gold trim that accentuated her dark looks. No one yet could call her pretty, but in this garb she achieved a regal elegance that drew eyes to her in admiration. Her broad shoulders were accented for a commanding appearance, and if her waist was trim because of daily hand to hand work outs, no one was about to complain. O'Neill pitied the other side; Malberg looked well able to bargain on behalf of the combined SG teams.

The only thing that the ladies wouldn't be able to do, O'Neill mused, would be to fight. Long skirts would get in the way, and where an army boot properly applied to the groin would take out a guy for the next six days these dainty little foot coverings would do little more than tickle and invite.

Well, that was what Raslow and O'Neill were for. Raslow didn't make his weaponry obvious, and O'Neill took his cue from the man. The P-90 got left behind, but O'Neill slipped Carter's little Berretta into his pocket and slid a knife into its sheath on his calf. There were a few more little beauties tucked here and about, and he had no doubt that Raslow had his own collection. Raslow might be a horse's ass, but he knew how to go into a potential combat situation. O'Neill wasn't worried. "Move out," he barked.

* * *

Despite O'Neill's and Raslow's caution, Teal'c had overheard last night's conversation. There were no directives from Colonel O'Neill, and there didn't need to be. Teal'c had been left at camp for a reason. Teal'c believed that DanielJackson would acquit himself well should the situation deteriorate to more than verbal ripostes, but, like the _sleeshat_ of Chulak, Abelard and Tarkov were more likely to attack from cover with the odds overwhelmingly in their favor. Teal'c resolved not to allow that situation to occur.

But both Abelard and Tarkov appeared to conduct themselves in accordance with Colonel O'Neill's commands. Clearly Raslow had had a discussion with them at an opportune moment. DanielJackson would not be in danger of harassment during the remainder of this mission, or so Teal'c surmised. And neither would MajorCarter. CaptainMalberg, however, seemed to invite such actions and enjoyed the attention. Teal'c sighed. Perhaps, if he lived another seventy years, he would understand the Tau're but he rather doubted it.

The two remaining SG-14 members bade him good-bye and went to secure the perimeter from malevolent influences. Last week, before SG-1 had joined them, Tarkov had seen signs of a group of people living in the hills. The people were living in what Malberg described as Neolithic fashion: foraging for food, cured animal skins draped around their bodies for protection against the weather, no written language. SG-14 had never caught sight of them, only hints of their presence as the hill people occasionally wandered within spitting distance of the SG camp; a shaking bush here, and a footprint there. "Just checking us out," was Malberg's opinion. "As long as we look formidable, they won't bother us." Major Raslow had agreed, but took the sensible precaution of assigning patrols to be done in pairs, including himself in the rotation.

Teal'c assigned himself the role of DanielJackson's assistant cum bodyguard, accompanying the scientist to the dig site. The writings that the linguist was attempting to decipher were nothing close to the Goa'uld that Teal'c himself could read, so Teal'c was of no value in the translation process, but he could fetch and carry and keep DanielJackson working at top efficiency. Which, in this case, meant refilling DanielJackson's coffee mug.

"Are you sure you don't want some, Teal'c?" Daniel offered. He could afford to be magnanimous; his private stash had returned to the quantity that he had packed for this mission. Daniel had been certain that someone was playing a subtle joke on him, taking and then putting back his caffeine-laced ground roast. Or maybe, as O'Neill had suggested, Daniel was simply losing his marbles. Jack had always said that Daniel drank too much coffee. Daniel always replied in kind, suggesting that Jack drank too much beer.

"Thank you, no. I am not in need of artificial stimulants," Teal'c replied, as Daniel had known that he would.

"Suit yourself," Daniel grinned, taking a long swig of the black stuff. He grinned again, feeling the heat burn its way down his esophagus. This was living: clean air, a fascinating site to work at, and a full thermos of high octane, coffee-flavored caffeine. It didn't get much better than this.

He returned to work on the pair of pillars, Teal'c fading away into the brush to do his own mini-perimeter sweep. Daniel grinned again. It wasn't that the big Jaffa didn't trust the two junior members of SG-14 to do their job, he just didn't trust them to do it as well he could. To each his own: Daniel lovingly traced one of the symbols on the larger pillar. Both pillars told the same story, of that he was certain, but with two different viewpoints.

The pillars were large and covered with the dust and dirt of several centuries of neglect. Daniel brushed off another layer of filth, peering at the symbols that he uncovered. Words and phrases began to filter through: a great war, weapons that flew through the air to wreak havoc and destruction—_didn't they always? Otherwise, what was the point of building them? _One side fought with honor and valor, the other with deceit, and the pillars disagreed with each other as to who were the good guys and who were the bad. Again, all very standard. What was impressive was that the big pillar winners hadn't demolished the small pillar of the losers. _History is written by the victors, Dr. Jackson_, he reminded himself again. _Why hadn't they destroyed any records that contradicted their own?_

Reluctantly he tore himself away from the sheer joy of translating to the mission goal of deciphering the details of those weapons. Earth had its own battles to fight, and Daniel could sympathize with General Hammond's need to acquire weapons of defense. The smaller pillar had those pieces; the losing side had apparently wagered most of its fortunes on weapons of mass destruction. He'd have to get Sam's input on what some of those chemical symbols meant for weapons design—chemical-ese was the most difficult language of all!—but he was fairly certain from the description that Earth possessed as good or better missiles. For simple bang-bang shoot-'em-up stuff, few could beat humans.

The larger pillar described more subtle devices. Daniel took another swig of his coffee and settled down in front of it, frantically scribbling notes. There was a lot more chemistry here than on the smaller pillar; that and biology. Daniel wondered if he'd have to ask Jack to send for a biologist. Carter was brilliant, but she was a physicist. Organic chemistry had the same effect on her that mechanical engineering did on the archeologist. As long as a machine did as it was told, Daniel was satisfied. He didn't want to take it apart to see how it worked. He took a second look at the pillar. The symbols he saw here did bear a startling resemblance to the chemical structure of caffeine that he'd seen once, a long time ago. What was the undergrad course? Chemistry for poets, to fulfill whatever science requirement the program had to make its graduates 'well-rounded'?

Daniel shook his head. Caffeine was probably the only chemical structure he could remember seeing, so every chemical structure he saw after that looked like caffeine. He set the thought aside. The rest of the pillar went on to say how this particular weapon had 'cast down the enemy, turning their courage to water' and had gone on to win the war for the big pillar culture.

After that, the history became a little vague. The winners took over and subjugated the losers, turning them into slaves. Daniel decided on the spot that he'd have to have a long discussion with Malberg as to what the current society of this planet was like. What had happened to those slaves? Did this culture still carry those memories? He wondered how he could wangle a place on the next trading expedition to see for himself, though it would be frustrating to have to ask all of his questions through Malberg or Sam. And those people in the hills, where they remnants of the losers? It seemed likely. Daniel wondered how he could get to talk to one or two.

_Be careful what you wish for_… Teal'c burst into the clearing. "DanielJackson! Lt. Abelard just radioed for assistance. He and Lt. Tarkov have been attacked by the hill people!"

Damn! Daniel snatched up the zat gun that O'Neill made him carry and dashed off after Teal'c.


	2. A Cup of Joe 2

"I know how to keep my mouth shut, for crying out loud," O'Neill groused. "I've done it before. Mostly," he amended honestly.

"It's not as easy as it sounds, sir," Malberg instructed, respectful but not in the least subservient. "These women really do hold all the power on this ball of dirt. And they have strict norms about men speaking in the presence of women. One word, one out of character grunt, and I'll have to convince them that I've put you through all kinds of corporal punishment to mend your ways before our next meeting with them. And, frankly, our make-up kit has taken a beating. I'm not sure we can make things look good enough. Wish we'd thought to ask you to bring more."

"I'm grateful that we didn't take snapshots," Raslow said wryly. "By the time Malberg was finished with me, I looked like I'd been through three rounds with your Teal'c. But they bought it, especially when I cringed at the end of a leash and rubbed my nose in the dirt in front of them." He laughed in remembrance. "I don't think either Malberg or I expected their reaction. But we've met with them twice since, and they've agreed to trade with us, so it looks as though it's working." He paused. "Didn't Dr. Jackson want to attend?"

"Daniel? He was foaming at the mouth. But getting those pillars translated is more important right now. He can play later." It had been an argument which had started in the SGC and continued through their travels through the wormhole. O'Neill had won through the time-honored convention of 'because I said so, Daniel. Work before play. We need those weapons!' O'Neill turned the corners of his mouth down, remembering, wishing that he could have said yes to his civilian. But priorities were priorities.

"Here they come," Carter said, pointing. She scuffed her feet, trying to conceal how uncomfortable her non-regulation shoes were.

"All right, everyone, show time," O'Neill murmured.

Malberg shot him a glance. "Just stay quiet, Colonel."

It was a procession of twelve: two women who were cloistered in an oversized rickshaw drawn by six sweating men. O'Neill winced; all that work in the hot sun and not even a grunt from any one of them? The wheel axles made more noise going over the ruts in the dirt road. Four more men dressed in homespun brown linens trailed aft, collecting mouthfuls of dust, no doubt.

The rickshaw rolled to a halt some dozen yards from the SG team. The better dressed men stepped forward to help the ladies alight.

Malberg had chosen their costumes well. In style, the ladies of P6292 matched Malberg and Carter, though in different colors and clearly more gaudy. O'Neill had no doubt that, unlike the SGC specials, the sparkling stones that decorated the décolletage were real gems and not paste.

The beads from Earth, however, seemed to be even more highly prized. A number of the more highly intricate beads were in places of honor and protected from harm. O'Neill wasn't surprised; Daniel had taught him long ago that the rarity of an item increased its value. And there weren't many on this planet who could boast of owning cheap beads all the way from Earth.

Malberg moved forward, drawing Carter with her. O'Neill almost stepped up as well, but Raslow held him back. O'Neill adopted Raslow's posture, head down and hands clasped demurely in front. And felt like an ass.

"Lady Asirah, Lady Zao, may I present my sister, Lady Samantha," Malberg said, inclining her head. Carter did the same.

"Lady Samantha. What a lovely name," the older one cooed. "Such a pleasure to have you here in our Sorority."

_Sorority?_ O'Neill almost mouthed at Raslow. He bit his lip.

"It's my honor," Carter replied as coached. "I look forward to meeting the rest of your sisters."

"Excellent idea," the other approved. "Sister, isn't it a good thing that we brought the large chariot? It will seat four, if we don't mind being cozy. Do come home with us."

O'Neill gulped, and he could feel Raslow champing at the bit, fighting not to say a word. _Trust Malberg, trust Malberg_, he chanted to himself.

"We'd love to," Malberg replied, "but we have men to care for. Did you bring the food to trade? We have some very fine pieces to show you." She displayed the collection of colorful beads that SG-1 had brought along as re-provisions. "And, of course, this is the special piece that I promised you." Malberg opened up a small box. Inside was an intricately carved metallic box covered in curlicues, excessively feminine and frothy. It looked utterly foreign in Malberg's large hands.

Ladies Asirah and Zao were less than enchanted. "How lovely," the younger one, Zao, said politely but without enthusiasm. "A box. May I see the beads once again? They are so unique!"

Malberg had anticipated the response. "Ah, but Lady Zao, attend to me once more, I beg of you." The flowery words sounded silly, but the sorority sisters didn't seem to notice. They brightened in anticipation. Malberg flipped open the lid to the box to display its inner workings. She twisted the key.

Tinkling music spilled out: the love theme from "Romeo and Juliet." Malberg glanced at Carter; Carter shrugged. _It was the only one on sale_. The mechanical disk rotated around and around, spitting out the tune with the notes tinny to the ear. Asirah and Zao were delighted.

"Where are the musicians?" Asirah wanted to know.

"There are none," Carter explained. She and Malberg had earlier decided to make Carter the mechanical wizard, to enhance her reputation in the eyes of the Sorority. Malberg had already established her social dominance, but both needed to maintain a certain cachet aside from that of being from 'a far off land'. "It works by tiny springs and intricate devices. See, here in the back. You wind this up, let it go, and the box plays."

"Magnificent!" Asirah declared. "I must have it. How many of our goods would you like in exchange?"

Malberg smiled at Carter. Raslow and O'Neill avoided any reaction. This too had been worked out before hand; matters of commerce were far too complex for 'mere men' to comprehend. She nodded at Carter.

"Please," Carter said politely, "take this as our gift to you, that there might be friendship between us."

That of course engendered all kinds of delighted exclamations on the part of the ladies, whereupon the remainder of the goods that the sisters had brought were bestowed upon Malberg and Carter as gifts in kind, with promises of more to come. It was clear that the gesture had been the right one, and O'Neill added a mark of approval next to Malberg's name on his mental list. She might not have been able to translate the pillars, but she knew her stuff when it came to First Contact with the natives. The trade had taken place, even if it hadn't had any numerical words of commerce exchanged.

And he abruptly erased the approval mark when Malberg agreed to accompany the sisters back to their Sorority House. Alone. Without either Carter, Raslow, or himself. Alone. O'Neill stopped himself from grinding his teeth.

"Lady Samantha, be a dear and have your men haul these things back to the camp. As soon as you've seen to their welfare, please return. We'd love to have you visit us as well," Asirah assured her.

"Believe me," Carter said, eyes glittering at Malberg, "I won't waste a moment. I can't wait to be with Lady Barbara again."

Captain Malberg tried to look innocent. It didn't quite come off.

* * *

_When in doubt, follow Teal'c, as long as he isn't leading you into trouble_. Daniel stretched his legs as far as he could. He wasn't slow, but keeping up with the big Jaffa was more difficult than deciphering the pillars. He could hear shouts in the distance, curses that belonged to Abelard and Tarkov, and wordless grunts and howls coming from their attackers. _Crap._ _I think we're headed for trouble_.

Teal'c aimed unerringly for the site of the disturbance, his staff weapon unlimbered and ready. Daniel loosened his zat gun in his holster. There was a long knife at his waist, and Teal'c and O'Neill had taught him how to use it—"_last resort only, Daniel, if you're up against someone who knows what they're doing. Otherwise it'll be shish-kabob a la Jackson_."—but pulling it out of the sheath was not on his agenda.

It was a madhouse. Daniel could barely see Abelard or Tarkov through the melee. Teal'c waded in, and the fun began. These were indeed the hill people, dressed in dirty animal skins and cloth cast-offs, and the stench alone was enough to bowl Daniel over. But the hill people's technique was one of 'beat 'em over the head with sticks, no finesse required'. Teal'c tossed two away without blinking, using his staff weapon as a mere staff. Abelard and Tarkov were busy dodging blows and tripping up half a dozen more.

Dr. Jackson might have enjoyed himself if he hadn't been so eager to talk to these people. The problem was that _they_ didn't seem eager to talk to _him_. They wanted to bash his skull in. And they didn't communicate with each other, either. No 'you take the right, and I'll take the left' or 'let's gang up on the funny one with glass eyes and hit him from behind'. In his many years of study, Dr. Jackson had gotten rather good at distinguishing words from meaningless vocalizations. While the howls that the hill people emitted had meaning, they were more along the lines of 'ouch, I've just been struck in an indelicate spot'.

The second problem was that the training he had received at the hands of Colonel O'Neill and Teal'c and even Samantha Carter had taken over. It had something to do with dodging the first swipe and getting clobbered on the back swing. Reflexes that he didn't even know that he possessed took over, making him duck under the smelly hill person's guard and landing a haymaker to the jaw that lifted the man up off of his stinking feet and dumped him onto a bog that smelled better.

Teal'c, however, was pleased to see that his training efforts had not gone in vain. There had been times when Teal'c had despaired of teaching DanielJackson anything more than how to raise his arms in surrender. Teal'c himself was wading through SG's assailants with ease, for they demonstrated little to no discipline and posed no threat to a Jaffa who had been trained by Master Bra'tec himself. His staff weapon he used as a club, for he had no wish to seriously injure any of these people, merely dissuade them from attacking his comrades.

Yet the numbers were worrisome. Teal'c had accounted for at least six, Abelard and Tarkov three and four respectively. And there were a least a dozen more pouring down on them.

Then, as mysteriously as it had begun, it stopped. The hill people melted away into the foliage, taking their wounded with them.

"What was that all about?" Daniel wiped his brow, retrieving his ever-present hat from the ground. "Did anything happen to provoke them?"

"Not that we could tell," Abelard grunted. He gasped, catching his breath, nursing a rapidly spreading bruise across his cheek.

"They attacked without warning," Tarkov growled. "Stupid natives!" He kicked a rock out of the clearing. "Should'a cleared 'em out, day one."

Daniel frowned. "We're here on their territory. Their behavior is not out of character. Maybe we should be asking why they haven't attacked us before this." He grimaced. "Wish we could have gotten one of them to talk to us."

"Talking isn't gonna work!" Abelard punched out a tree, then cursed, shaking his knuckles. Daniel stared at him; both Abelard and Tarkov were still upset and stomping around the erstwhile battleground.

"Calm yourselves," Teal'c ordered sternly. "The battle is over. You are disgracing yourselves as warriors."

"That wasn't a battle. That was an ambush!"

"Nevertheless, you acquitted yourselves well. The enemy was driven away with no loss of life or goods." Teal'c tried to soothe them, realizing that the two Tau're were still ready for battle.

"They'll be back," Tarkov predicted, his voice rising. "They'll be back. We ought'a go back to base and arm ourselves good. We can set up an ambush ourselves and—"

"Hey, hold on here!" Daniel said, alarmed at the direction this was taking. "They're gone. They might not come back. We can scare them off without killing them."

Abelard pushed his face into Daniel's. "It's us or them! And I'm going to make sure that it's us! Out of my way!"

Teal'c grabbed Abelard by the collar and shook him like a terrier with a rat. "Must I send you back to Stargate Command in disgrace?" he shouted, as if disciplining a young recruit. "Both of you are acting like barnyard fowl!"

"Chickens," Daniel murmured.

Teal'c tossed Abelard aside. The lieutenant fell in a heap in the bog that Daniel had recently dumped his own opponent. The cold swamp water sobered Abelard immediately, and Teal'c's glare had a similar effect on Tarkov.

Abelard sputtered, and blinked. He looked around, picked up a messy hand to shake off the bog, staring at his hand as if he'd never seen it before. He looked back at Teal'c, the worry plain on his face. "What the hell happened to me?" He squeezed his eyes tightly, and then opened them in bewilderment. "What's going on? I've never reacted like that, not even in a firefight against the Goa'uld and their Jaffa." He winced. "Sorry, Teal'c. No offense."

"None taken." The Jaffa was satisfied. Abelard and Tarkov were no longer in the grip of battle fury.

Abelard levered himself up out of the bog, trying to wipe off the smelly muck. "I needed that," he said ruefully, sighing, "even if my clothes didn't. Damn."

"Go back to camp," Teal'c ordered, taking command despite having no recognizable rank. "Both of you. Change your clothing and clean yourselves. Then escort Dr. Jackson back to the dig and remain with him."

"What about you?"

"I will secure the perimeter, to make certain that the hill people have not lingered in the vicinity."

"You think—" Tarkov started to let his temper swell up once again, then, with an effort, controlled himself. He nodded briskly. "Yes, sir." He extended a hand to Abelard. "C'mon. Let's go." He looked up. "You, too, Dr. Jackson. We'll watch your six."

Daniel's parting comment to Teal'c, as the trio trudged off dripping bog water, was, "keep in touch. Keep your radio on." Daniel wasn't certain if he was worried about Teal'c's safety—or his own.

Tarkov's eyes darted frantically over the landscape.

* * *

"Feel free to talk," Major Raslow invited bitterly, "because I'm going to say the same thing. I'm going to bust Malberg down to sifting sand when I get hold of her." He kicked a loose stone out of the road with his boot. It did nothing to assuage his anger.

They were on their way back to the SG camp, minus one SG-14 member, one who should have known better than to go off with a bunch of natives. Even Daniel, Jack reflected, behaved better. Of course, it had taken a number of missions to get his civilian archeologist to agree to that particular rule, but Malberg was military. She should have known better. And it wasn't in the plan that both SG teams had agreed to. This was to be a meet and greet, to introduce Carter to the 'Sorority', to look for more information that might lead to translating the pillars and acquiring a damn fine weapon against the Goa'uld. Allowing a single SG member to stay behind had not been part of the plan.

"Dumb ass thing to do," O'Neill agreed, his own annoyance cooling at Raslow's obvious discomfort with his insubordinate subordinate. "Raslow, you know these women best after Malberg. How do we get her back in one piece? And what's going on with Malberg?"

"You think she's going native?" Carter asked. "Daniel's mentioned times like that, when anthropologists became so enthralled by the culture they're studying that they become part of it."

"Like Daniel, and Abydos?" O'Neill pointed out acerbically. "Yeah, that crossed my mind."

"Look, I'm the only one who can talk to her, according to the rules of this culture," Carter said. She finished moving some of the booty from each man's pack into her own; she'd be damned if she didn't pull her own weight. O'Neill had almost stopped her, but then quashed his own sense of chivalry. This was the Air Force. Treat each man and woman according to their individual capabilities. He wouldn't insult Carter by shouldering her load, no matter what this planet was like. He'd treat her like spun gold in front of the natives, but afterward she was his second in command and they both liked it like that.

"They've invited me to go and visit, as soon as I've 'taken care' of you men folk. I can go, and take some of you with me," she suggested. "I can make it clear to Malberg that we expect her to go back with us through the Stargate. We ought to give her the benefit of the doubt," Carter added. "Maybe she saw something important that she wasn't able to discuss with us in front of the Sorority Sisters."

"Colonel, I suggest we _all_ go to fetch her," Raslow said coldly. "_I_ certainly want to be there. After we're finished with her, your Dr. Jackson may not have another opportunity to study this culture up close, and I think we need to take the other three in case things get ugly. Which they might, if Malberg doesn't want to leave."

"You mean, if she's really going native," O'Neill said bleakly.

"Sir, I have something to put in," Carter spoke up sheepishly. "I didn't think anything of it at the time, but now, considering what's happened…"

"Details, Carter. Words of one syllable."

"Sir, I came across Captain Malberg in the woman's lockers shortly before she left on this mission. She'd just gotten a Dear John letter from that guy she'd been seeing."

"That psychologist fellow?" Raslow's jaw tightened. "Damn. I knew he couldn't be trusted."

Carter plowed ahead. "Apparently he had trouble with her week-long absences, and her refusal to say where she'd been, except for 'on a mission.' Last time she was off-world, he packed up his things and moved out. Left her a note."

"Cold." At least Sarah had had the guts to face him, O'Neill reflected. He didn't love his ex-wife any less, but that didn't change the fact that after Charlie died—he cut that thought off. _Not productive, O'Neill_.

* * *

_"He dumped me for a blonde bimbo with a high school education." Carter had come across Malberg in the woman's locker room. The room was small; there weren't many women in the Stargate Program, and there wasn't much need for many lockers. Malberg had been unexpectedly vulnerable, and Carter available. There was something heart-wrenching about such a large and unbeautiful woman in tears. Some women could look good while crying. Malberg wasn't one of them. "A bimbo with a giggle," she added bitterly. "And boobs out to here."_

_Carter pieced together the story through the heaving sobs. Moved out during the last mission, a curt and breezy note saying 'sorry it didn't work out'. And then that humiliating scene in the Chinese restaurant a week later when she went to pick up her order and found them sitting there. That's when she'd heard that nauseating giggle._

_Malberg had pulled herself together, had declared herself grateful to be rid of someone so uncaring that he could leave while she was off-world. "I'm better off without him," were her parting words to Carter. If it wasn't a complete recovery, it was at least a reasonable façade against the lingering hurt._

_But…there were those unwritten rules in the military. A male soldier getting a Dear John letter was watched closely for days. A woman with the same thing was told to 'get over it.'

* * *

_

It clicked. Daniel had to keep himself from yelling 'voila'. It was all there, but in short vignettes across both pillars. He had had to make a literal leap between the two to piece the story together.

Society A, the winners, had been losing the war. They were being beaten down by the weapons that Society B had invented, were being dragged off into slavery of some type by Society B that they described in euphemistic terms that Daniel would have to work at to translate. They made it sound horrible, with lots of pain and suffering, typical for such writings. But Society A had some clever and devious thinkers on their side. 'A' couldn't beat 'B' at their own game, so they invented a new one: biological warfare.

Here Daniel jumped to the smaller pillar, which described the biochemical agent in terms of the symptoms it caused: aggressive behavior that led to constant infighting among the members of Society B, an inability to think clearly, rapid heartbeat, and tremors. There was more, but the words weren't easily translatable. Then the writing died away to a mere childish scrawl. Society B had bitten the dust.

Society A wrote the next chapter, full of flowery self-aggrandizements. The benevolent members of Society A took pity on the remnants of B, and gave them medicine to cure them despite how badly 'B' had treated 'A'. Mighty big of them, Daniel huffed, seeing as how A had spread the airborne poison in the first place. But they all seemed to have lived happily ever after, allowing their level of technology to wither into this current matriarchal feudalism that Malberg had reported. It was the usual manner that civilization advanced, by one culture overtaking and destroying another, with only records such as these left behind to indicate that anything other than the status quo had existed.

Daniel happily chugged his last gulp of coffee, noting with disappointment that the thermos was empty. He jotted down a few more notes, rising to check his work against the other pillar.

Tarkov slammed him against the massive pillar. Daniel's head connected with the stone, and he saw stars.

"What are you doing?" he yelped. Astonishment warred with fear.

"If it weren't for you, we wouldn't be here," Tarkov growled. "Malberg was doing just fine without you." He delivered a vicious punch to the gut. Daniel folded. Tarkov let him slide to the dirt. "Now, because of you, we're stuck here."

"I'll have you up on charges," Daniel wheezed, trying to persuade his lungs to function, and the coffee to stay inside his stomach. Neither was cooperating. His legs were a lost cause.

"For what?" Tarkov kicked him in the ribs. Daniel grunted. "A few bruises? You took more damage when the damn natives attacked than anyone realized. Damn wuss. Can't defend yourself, gotta have a baby-sitter. You don't belong here, wimp. You belong in a nice safe library, back on Earth. Not here, where the nasty natives beat you up." He sneered down at the archeologist. "Abelard here is my witness. I never touched you. It was all those damn hill people."

"And even if you complain, geek, who are they going to believe?" Abelard added maliciously. "You? How many times have you been in the loony bin? How many attempted suicides? You've got a _history_, Danny-boy. Tarkov and I don't." He picked Daniel up and straightened him out. He over-solicitously dusted him off. Daniel sagged back against the pillar, staring at the two men, trying to hide his fear. Where was Teal'c? He could really use the big Jaffa showing up right about now. But Abelard continued, pushing his face into Daniel's. "Better not say anything, Jackson. Tell O'Neill that the pillars have nothing about weapons at all. And get us back home." Abelard flicked a speck of dirt off of Daniel's shoulder. Daniel cringed involuntarily. "I think he'll cooperate. Don't you, Tarkov?"

"He'd better."

Abelard laughed, the sound echoing viciously into the dying afternoon. "Let's head back to camp."


	3. A Cup of Joe 3

O'Neill, Carter, and Raslow arrived back at camp just before sundown, dusty and tired and cranky. Carter wasted no time in doffing her finery and getting back into her comfortable BDU's. The shoes in particular got stuffed back into their slot in her gear. The men too removed their brown homespun duds. Both expected to stand a watch, and blending in with the underbrush was better than standing out in brown linens with rough lace.

Daniel already had dinner simmering as they walked in, delicious smells wafting out to greet them on the final few yards of their journey. O'Neill felt a vague stir of annoyance; the archeologist had taken his turn at cooking last evening. Hadn't Raslow spoken to his people? Well, maybe it was Teal'c's turn, and Daniel had volunteered an extra shift rather than be subjected to the Jaffa's ideas on nutrition. That would fit. O'Neill dismissed the thought, and washed up. He already had enough to be cranky about without taking on more problems.

Abelard filled both O'Neill and Raslow in on the events of the day. "We chased 'em off, sir, and haven't seen hide nor hair of their smelly backsides since. But both Tarkov and I think they'll be back, sir. Dr. Jackson's just about done with his translating. No reason to stay here on this ball of mud. Dr. Jackson told me that there wasn't anything to be found on those pillars, nothing that we can use. Just a lot of archeological stuff."

O'Neill perked up his head. Was something on this God-forsaken mission going the way they wanted, that Daniel 'please, Jack, just one more day' Jackson had completed his task? "That right, Daniel? You've finished your reading assignment and we can go home? You ready to write the book report, that the plot stinks? No anti-Goa'uld devices?"

"Yeah."

Hypothetical red flags fluttered in the breeze. Daniel's response was little more than a grunt, and it was out of character. O'Neill had never seen Daniel anything less than enthusiastic over his work, and a breakthrough in understanding the writings as Abelard was describing should have had the archeologist turning cartwheels. There was something more going on. There might not be any weapons, but this, to the archeologist, should have been a cultural breakthrough worthy of pulling out a round of coffee for the house. But Daniel had remained taciturn all through dinner, refusing to be drawn out on his work, neatly steering the conversation away from himself and onto the SG teams' encounter with the Sorority Sisters. And there was a haunted set to the archeologist's shoulders that worried O'Neill. This was a situation that would bear watching.

Talking about the Sorority culture that the three had witnessed elicited more discussion from their resident archeologist. O'Neill covered it as mission planning, pleased to see that Daniel took a more active interest. He resolved to take the man aside later, find out what the problem was.

Carter would have to be their lead on this recovery mission, since she was the only one allowed to speak in the presence of the Sorority Sisters and both O'Neill and Raslow were hoping that they could get Malberg back without any fuss from either the Sisters or Malberg. Using Daniel's theories as a springboard, O'Neill decided that while Carter would be forced back into her prom gown and Cinderella slippers, the rest of them could stay in their BDU's as a symbol that the SG teams were not and never had been members of the Sorority House. They would abide by Sorority House rules to be polite but expecting the SG men to completely assimilate the culture was going too far. _No more Mr. Nice Guy. Really_.

The challenge would be in communicating amongst themselves while in the presence of the women. Speech was out of the question. That would offend the ladies irreparably, Raslow told them, and blow any chance of getting peacefully in and out with Malberg and away to the Stargate for a quick and final trip home. Even overt gesturing would be out of line. Somehow Carter would have to divine what O'Neill wanted her to do at each moment, as well as absorb all of Daniel's multi-cultural expertise on the spot. Surreptitious hand signals could only go so far.

Carter was not happy. "Colonel, I flunked Telepathy 101 in school. It's why I work with machines."

"I don't know," Daniel said with a grin. It was the first smile on him that O'Neill had seen all night long. "Your ability to figure machine things out seems pretty psychic to me."

"Hah, hah. Practice your hand signals, Daniel, because I am going to be staring and glaring at you for clues on how to get through this."

* * *

First topic of the evening: Teal'c. O'Neill deliberately assigned the Jaffa the first shift of watch, ignoring the surprised and almost hurt look that the former First Prime gave him. _Am I not worthy of a more dangerous shift, ColonelO'Neill? Have I offended you? Shall I defend my honor?_ But the Jaffa had learned obedience to a superior at the knee of Apophis. He stalked off into the night to attend to his duties.

O'Neill watched him go, and carefully took his time draining his cup of Daniel's special blend before stretching his legs with a long and satisfied hiss. "Think I'll touch base with Teal'c before I turn in."

Raslow's eyes followed his every move. "Shall I join you, colonel?" Every line in his body screamed _wary_, and every eye in the camp was upon the senior officer.

"Nah. Just working the kinks out." O'Neill hoped that his return smile didn't look too tight, decided it didn't matter. Raslow and his entire team would be on alert for enemies both from without and within. Marlberg's apparent defection would make them all hyper-alert to anything and everything. Nothing O'Neill could do about it.

But it was not what O'Neill was after. He ambled some hundred yards away from the camp and stood still, enjoying the night air and remaining in the open where the Jaffa could see him. He almost missed the quiet yet deliberate snap of a small twig. Without looking around, he asked, "What happened today, T?"

The campfire was still a pile of glowing coals in the clearing beyond the trees, with Abelard and Raslow enjoying their cups of Daniel's finest before the liquid turned tepid, listening to the sounds of the night. Teal'c had ghosted off into the night, running the first of several perimeter checks, ensuring that the hill people were not again approaching. The Jaffa was certain that a stealthy encounter would not be an issue; if nothing else, he would be able to smell them drawing near.

O'Neill had made no attempt at silence, and the Jaffa allowed his commanding officer to come close. He recognized then that O'Neill needed to converse, and that that was the reason for the disgracefully early watch shift.

Dark eyes tried to fathom the hidden meaning in O'Neill's words. "I am not certain what you mean, O'Neill. Lieutenants Abelard and Tarkov described our encounter with the hill people with reasonable accuracy."

"Yeah?"

"Indeed. We acquitted ourselves with valor, injuring as few of our opponents as possible, and they ran off. Even DanielJackson demonstrated a high degree of skill. I was most impressed with his attention to the lessons that you and I have pushed upon him."

"Good," O'Neill muttered, thinking hard. "Nothing else? Abelard and Tarkov?"

Teal'c grew a stony expression. "There is little to tell."

"Tell me anyway."

"They were…" Teal'c collected his thoughts, tried to decide how best to tell the tale. "Lieutenants Abelard and Tarkov were reluctant to let the hill people depart. They wished to pursue, to as they put it: 'teach them a lesson'," Teal'c responded. "DanielJackson and I calmed the two members of SG-14. The hill people returned to their dwellings in the hills, and have not troubled us further."

"And—?" O'Neill wasn't finished. There had to be more to the story. Daniel wasn't skulking around the campfire for nothing.

More impassiveness. "At the time, I did not trust either Lieutenant Abelard or Tarkov to monitor the withdrawal of the hill people without provoking further assaults, so I assigned them to accompany DanielJackson back to the pillars. I observed the hill people meander to their homes in the caves some distance away. There were no further incidents that I am aware of." _Were there?_ the Jaffa eyes demanded silently, coldly.

"Gonna find out, big guy. Gonna find out." _What the hell was on those pillars that Daniel translated, to make him act like this? A Doomsday weapon, that he's afraid that Earth's leaders might use? Yeah, that would put a cringe into anyone's shoulders_. _And it would explain why Daniel was so reluctant to admit what he'd found._

O'Neill cornered Daniel after returning to the fire. He pulled him off to the side, where they could have some semblance of privacy. "Daniel?"

Daniel had a ready answer. He didn't pretend to not know what O'Neill was after. He put down the dishes, having scraped them clean, and faced his commanding officer. "There's nothing on those pillars that Earth can use, Jack. Abelard was right. We can go home as soon as we collect Malberg. This whole mission was a waste of time." He looked away.

O'Neill blinked. "Daniel, in the years that I've known you, you have never _ever_ described any linguistic effort as a waste of time, even if there is absolutely no value to the knowledge that any of us can see including you. You have _always_ fought for more time, more pictures, more everything. What's going on? What was on those pillars?"

_Scenario one: I don't talk. But sooner or later, Abelard and Tarkov start thinking that I'll blab, that I can destroy their careers if I'm around. I try to defend myself against them, say in the parking lot, late at night. Two expert goons against one uber-geek. After all the training I've gotten from Jack and Teal'c, and assuming the SG-14 commandos were in no hurry, I might last all of thirty seconds. Not the best plan I've had._

_Scenario two: I tell Teal'c what Abelard and Tarkov did. He rips their arms off. They bring him up on charges, and Teal'c spends the rest of his days in an iron cage. Not an option._

_Scenario three: I tell Jack. He might believe me. Maybe. But, as Abelard and Tarkov pointed out, he's also the one who pulled me off of the balcony on a really, really bad day. And allowed MacKenzie to lock me away in a gray padded cell._ _And stared down the barrel of the loaded pistol in my hand when I was coming down from a sarcophagus high. Again, not a real good option._

_Scenario four: I tell Sam. Who then tells Jack. Back to scenario three._

_Or I can just shut up. Get the hell out of Dodge until I can figure a way out of this, preferably intact._

"I'm just sore. And tired." Daniel wasn't lying. "Some of those hill people were big." Also not a lie.

O'Neill didn't buy it. "What's going on, Daniel?" The usual levity in his voice was missing.

"There really isn't anything on those pillars that we can use." That too was the truth. "The losers hurled bombs that we stopped using in the forties, and the winners went for bio-warfare. The agent they used is probably long gone and probably wouldn't be useful against the Goa'uld anyway. You know how effective they are at eliminating poisons and viruses in their hosts."

O'Neill kept probing. "So you're saying that this whole mission was a waste of time?"

Daniel shrugged. "Seems like it." He sagged against the tree, trying to look nonchalant. "Let it alone, Jack. Let's just go home."

O'Neill considered, and came to a decision. "Strip."

"What?"

"You heard me. Strip. Take your shirt off. You're only this grumpy when you're hurt and don't want to admit it. So take your shirt off, or I'll do it for you." Overriding Daniel's objection, he added, "I'm responsible for the safety of this mission, Daniel. That means every member in it. I need to know if I need to send you back through the Stargate right now."

"I'm fine," Daniel grumbled, fumbling at the buttons. "Besides, you need me to get Malberg back."

"No, I don't; I need Carter. You don't get to talk on this mission, according to the cultural expert standing right in front of me. Without your expertise, I may ruin any chance we have for an alliance with these ladies, but—" he ended in a long whistle as a nasty and large purple bruise appeared across Daniel's torso. Daniel winced. He hadn't realized that every color of the rainbow was appearing, hadn't dared to look when everyone else was around to look with him. O'Neill cocked his head, frowning. "You weren't kidding about being sore. Anything broken?"

"No."

O'Neill believed that only after feeling for himself, ignoring the flinching that Daniel couldn't suppress. "And you got this during the fight with the hill people?"

"Yes." _That's torn it. Before, I was side-stepping the truth. Now I've outright lied to the mission commander, and my best friend._ "I was stupid. I tried to talk to them."

The actions sounded like Daniel, but not the grouchy, little-kid tones. Well, it did, but only when Daniel was covering something up. _Like Charlie did sometimes, when he knew he'd misbehaved._

O'Neill gave up in annoyance, not knowing how to proceed. He was used to trying to get the archeologist to shut up, and had lots of practice at that. Working the opposite end was a unique and challenging proposition. Daniel would talk when Daniel was ready to talk.

"Get a full eight hours tonight," O'Neill finally ordered. "And take some pain-killers. I need you in top form tomorrow," he finished. "I've got a missing captain to haul back out of the Sorority."

* * *

Teal'c was next on Jack O'Neill's short list of people to talk to, a second discussion, this time armed with additional information. "Teal'c, about your fight with those hill people."

"I would hesitate to characterize it as a fight, Colonel O'Neill. A short tussle, perhaps. No true harm was intended on either side, merely a testing foray to assess the strength of the opponent." Teal'c cocked his head. "We made a good showing, Colonel O'Neill, if that is what you are asking. I believe it will be some time before the hill people summon the courage to attack us again, and certainly not while we are in these numbers."

"That wasn't what I was concerned about," O'Neill replied. "Daniel got beat up pretty badly. He says he's sore, and he's got a great, honkin' bruise across his ribs. I thought you said that you kept an eye on him."

Teal'c frowned. "I did, O'Neill. DanielJackson acquitted himself well in battle. He dodged many blows; only one minor one got through his initial guard, and that to his left shoulder. I observed him closely during the struggle, and he demonstrated that he has been listening intently to the information that you and I have endeavored to impart during our training sessions. He took no injury. I would have ended the battle much more swiftly had he done so." Teal'c's face took on a darker demeanor. "If DanielJackson is injured, then it occurred either prior to or directly after the skirmish. I should like to know which. And by whom. Whom does DanielJackson accuse?" _As if I didn't know_.

"Hold on, big guy." O'Neill put up a hand to stop the angry Jaffa. "Daniel's not talking. There's more to this than meets the eye. I mean, there's a lot of problems here, and we don't know what they all are," he amended, translating the idiom before Teal'c could voice the question. "There's got to be a reason that Daniel isn't talking. But in the meantime, I want either you or me or Carter to be with him at all times."

"You do not trust MajorRaslow or his men."

O'Neill looked unhappy. It sounded pretty bad when phrased that way. Was it the truth? "Just…don't let Daniel out of your sight. Just until we figure out what's going on."

"That too is my intention, ColonelO'Neill."

* * *

Teal'c turned the watch over to Tarkov. The night had been quiet, but he was aware that they were being kept under surveillance. The hills were noisy with the sounds of insects and small rodents foraging for food, and the occasional cry of a night-dweller. Those sounds were primarily from the lower creatures, but not all. Some were created by the hill people, positioning themselves in the distant undergrowth in order to better observe the SG teams.

There was no danger yet, no need to awaken the other SG members. There was nothing in the wind that signaled an impending attack. Should that change, Teal'c would feel it. Though he would rest for the remainder of the night, he would not sleep, for he did not believe that Lt. Tarkov could as accurately gauge the temper of their opponents in the hills. Teal'c did not require sleep, a condition at this moment for which he was grateful. Even through his kel-no-reem, he would remain alert.

Nor did he trust Lt. Tarkov. This was a terrible thing to say about a fellow warrior, but Teal'c knew of a certainty that DanielJackson had suffered no injury during the battle with the hill people, nor had he complained of any prior. The only time unaccounted for was when Teal'c had gone to ensure that the hill people had indeed fallen back, and DanielJackson was in the company of Lts. Tarkov and Abelard. If one was involved, the other surely was as well.

Tarkov ambled around the edge of the camp, looking for signs of the hill people. Teal'c suppressed a frown; if the man had been under Teal'c's command, he would have sent him back to a school for Jaffa children to learn how to move quietly in the forest. Tarkov stumbled around in the brush as did a herd of undomesticated equines.

Clearly the man was agitated. Teal'c debated taking back the watch, for in this state Tarkov would be certain to miss vital signals. But—no. Teal'c could monitor the situation from his seated position before the dying campfire and in addition take advantage of the warmth. Colonel O'Neill was hard pressed to believe that Teal'c could do this, but Colonel O'Neill had not been trained by Master Bra'tec as Teal'c had been. Tarkov would do no harm during the watch that Teal'c could not repair.

Tarkov's clumsy steps went here, then there, short forays in one direction only to be reversed and then stumble off at right angles to his path. Once he relieved himself, and came back to the fire to warm his hands. Throughout this all Teal'c held his peace. This unworthy warrior was Major Raslow's problem, not his. And if Major Raslow was satisfied with the performance of this fool, then Teal'c would say nothing. If there was any justice in the world, then the next mission that SG-14 attempted would be their last and good riddance.

But Tarkov's steps took him within inches of a sleeping teammate. Teal'c slitted open his eyes, to find the man staring hungrily down at MajorCarter in her sleeping bag. MajorCarter murmured something quietly in her sleep and rolled over, throwing her arm across her face like a child.

Teal'c did not care for Tarkov's expression. If that expression had been directed at Teal'c's own wife back on Chulak, the warrior would have been disciplined most harshly by Teal'c himself. But this was not Chulak, and that was not Teal'c's wife. It was MajorCarter, a fierce warrior in her own right. Teal'c would not insult her by offering to fight her battles for her, even though DanielJackson had once explained to him the custom whereby a warrior might do so. DanielJackson had called it 'chivalry', and seemed quite distressed that the custom appeared to be dying out among the children of the Tau're.

Tarkov withdrew. But his clumsy steps then led him to where DanielJackson lay sleeping soundly under the influence of the pain-killers that ColonelO'Neill had forced upon him. Then there was silence. Once again Teal'c opened his eyes, keeping watch on the watcher.

Tarkov looked down at the sleeping man. DanielJackson moved restlessly in his sleep, unable to find a comfortable position, settling for the least painful one. Tarkov's face contorted with fury. Teal'c prepared to jump to his feet; was Tarkov about to attack the archeologist? It almost seemed so.

But Tarkov got himself under control, and in that moment Teal'c _knew_ who had placed the bruise on Teal'c's teammate.

Though he longed to confront the warrior unworthy of the title, Teal'c recalled O'Neill's words of restraint. Very well, Teal'c would not intervene. Teal'c's leader had spoken, and Teal'c would not dishonor O'Neill by premature action. Teal'c's own commander had proven himself a valiant and wily warrior to whom Teal'c had pledged his own honor, and Teal'c had no doubt but that the _sleethan_ who now guarded the camp would receive his just desserts, to quote a Tau're saying.

* * *

"Take us to our sister Barbara," Carter demanded, trying to keep it polite and civil. The hated gown flowed around her ankles, and her feet ached after walking so many miles in the dainty slippers. She almost wished she'd taken Teal'c up on his offer to carry her, but her pride got in the way; that, and the muttered phrase 'girlie stuff' that had fallen from Raslow's teeth earlier when she was getting into costume. It wasn't Carter's fault that she was dressed up like a neon sign on Times Square, but she was damned if she was going to let Raslow know that it bothered her. If her fellow major could get along with Malberg, he could damn well get along with her.

Lady Zao blinked. "Why, certainly, sister. Come along this way." She looked surprised at Carter's vehemence. "Your men can follow mine."

"Just like that?"

"Of course. I can't imagine what possessed you and Lady Barbara, living out in the open that way with those horrid hill people all around. They're very dangerous, you know." Lady Zao ascended gracefully into the rickshaw affair and gestured for Carter to follow. Without looking at Major Raslow, Carter joined her. Equal rights were all very well, but Raslow got to wear comfortable boots. What was so equal about that?

Zao looked around. "Are your men well-trained? Will they follow mine?"

"Very well-trained," Carter assured her without looking at Colonel O'Neill. He would have a hard time listening to this nonsense. "We don't follow your customs, but we respect them." Daniel Jackson had coached her on that line.

"Yes, so Lady Barbara has told me."

O'Neill motioned surreptitiously for the others to fall in behind him. Daniel contrived to walk next to one of Zao's men, looking for any signs that the man might talk to him while his mistress wasn't looking.

But the man plodded along, head down, oblivious to the fact that a man from another world walked beside him. He was also oblivious to Daniel's attempts to engage him in whispered conversation. The man to Daniel's right demonstrated the same behavior. After several _sotto voce_ attempts, Daniel shrugged and gave up.

O'Neill searched the archeologist's face with his gaze, raising his eyebrows. Daniel gave an imperceptible shake of his head: no go. O'Neill's shoulders slumped. He'd been hoping for some sort of connection with these men, some easier way to get to Malberg who, he was certain, wasn't going to come along quietly. O'Neill sighed again. The connection wasn't there, and Raslow grimaced as well. Miles to go before getting to the place where the Sorority ladies hung out. Miles that would be walked, step by step in heavy army boots.

The Sorority House, as Raslow had insisted on calling it, was less a dormitory than a fortress. Thinking back to their skirmish with the hill people, Daniel could see why. A massive stockade surrounded what could only be described as an apartment complex. Fields and orchards ringed the outside of the stockade with a multitude of men tending the crops.

But 'apartment complex' didn't do the edifice justice. No square brick building boasted so much ornamentation, so much wrought ironwork, so many sweeping balconies for the sisters to gaze down from. Upon entering, SG found that at the center of the complex was a large garden with lovely nooks and crannies, trees to shade delicate complexions and flowers to gather for indoor aromas.

Carter could see Daniel drooling despite his earlier misery, longing to take pictures of the decorative writings on the walls to compare with the pillars back near to the Stargate. Bright blue eyes catalogued as much he could stuff into his brain, his bodily hurts ignored in favor of gathering knowledge.

Daniel was in his element.

_We're not here for that, Daniel_. Carter sympathized, but knew that neither O'Neill nor Raslow would. And especially not Abelard and Tarkov.

Now was the time for negotiation. Carter wished heartily that she'd had more time for lectures from Dr. Jackson on culture and societal norms, how to deal with other races. Daniel did it with such ease, bringing off treaties and agreements between peoples who had been enemies for generations. Part of it was the man himself, and part of it was the knowledge that he had squirreled away in that fantastic mind of his. Carter longed for a telepathic link. It would have come in handy right about now. _Wish I really had taken a course called Telepathy 101, even if it would have brought my GPA down._

Lady Asirah sat on a chair so ornate that it was better described as a throne, with curlicues and swirls carved into the arms and legs. The fabric cushioning was shot through with gold and silver thread, with a background of pink. _Very girlie_, Carter could feel Abelard sneering behind her. Asirah looked every inch the matriarch as she perched there.

She was not alone. Zao took her own place beside Asirah, with a half dozen more ladies in similar chairs. Carter felt as though she were facing her doctoral thesis review board again, but this time she hadn't a clue what the research was supposed to be.

She drew on her Daniel lectures: be nice. "Thank you for receiving us," she said, and corrected herself: "me." To these Sorority Sisters, men didn't count. Carter was here as a singleton. Behind her she could sense O'Neill shifting his weight impatiently. She hurried on. "I am here to collect my sister. May I see her?"

"Certainly, my dear," Asirah assured her. "Lady Barbara was most pleased to hear that you've come to join her. But first, let us partake of refreshment. Let us see to your menfolk."

"That's very kind of you, but we're expected elsewhere—" Carter started to say, when Malberg entered the hallway.

She was still dressed in sorority costume, the midnight blue accentuating her massive frame, but she'd added ornamentation borrowed from the sorority sisters. Dark hair now cascaded down her shoulders in most unmilitary fashion, golden ribbons entwined in the curls. Someone had taken mascara to her eyes, rimming them in dark kohl and turning her into an exotic creature reminiscent of the mistresses of the Near East. But it was Malberg's carriage that had most altered: she was no longer the military ramrod, fighting to keep her place. Lady Barbara had become a willing member of the Sorority, a Magnificent Mistress of Men.

Raslow surreptitiously kicked Tarkov back into line; the lieutenant's jaw was drooping in a most un-officerish way. Abelard gulped, but said nothing. O'Neill swallowed hard, not letting the 'Malberg! Get your ass over here! We're leaving!' escape his throat.

"Lady Samantha," Malberg greeted her, carefully ignoring her commanding officer in deference to the local customs. "I'm so glad you could come. Let my men see to your comfort." She gestured to the pair that had accompanied her. Obviously Asirah and Zao had loaned her a couple.

"That would be lovely, but we haven't much time." Carter's voice held a warning for the captain. "We have an appointment. With General Hammond."

Malberg didn't pretend not to catch her meaning. "Yes, you're absolutely right." She turned to Asirah. "Sister, Lady Samantha is correct; she and I must take our menfolk and meet with a leader of our world. I must prepare to return with her, or we will be missed."

Asirah nodded in agreement. Obviously Malberg had been busy developing a relationship with these people, O'Neill realized, wondering if he'd misread the situation. She hadn't been simply larking with the natives. A point in her favor. They could come back, and formalize treaties, once they'd established a base. Malberg could lead the delegation. Maybe Malberg really _had_ had a reason for skipping out on her team, a reason that she had not had a chance to impart given the circumstances.

Malberg drew Carter aside. O'Neill wished they were closer, so that he could hear what they were saying.

"Major Carter, there are more writings down in the catacombs of this place," Malberg said quietly. "I was able to translate some of them, and, Major, they're incredible! They may just be what Earth needs to fight the Goa'uld! I can't be certain; I need you with me with your expertise. But with me to translate, and you to figure out the machinery, this place may be a gold mine for Earth! We can't leave now!"

"Captain, we're expected back on Earth," Carter reminded her. "We can come back, if these things are all you say they are. But why are these people living like this, if they have such technology?"

"Good question," Malberg returned. "I'm still working on the answer. Major, I'd like to have you look at those things for just an hour or two; then you'll be able to decide if it's worth coming back here for anything more than good will. But for right now, Major, we need to present a good front to these people. Asirah is going to offer us refreshment for both us and the men; it's a ritual. I went through it when I arrived here at the sorority house. It's perfectly safe; it didn't affect me at all. Let the others know to cooperate, and then we'll take our leave after you see the documents in the catacombs. That will give our people back home more to work with, to decide how important a treaty with these ladies is. I'll tell Asirah that we plan to return in a week or two. Acceptable?"

Carter glanced at Colonel O'Neill. The colonel was trying hard to appear as docile as the sorority men did, and failing miserably. He looked back at Carter, hoping that his own non-existent telepathy would miraculously appear.

Nope. This was a decision that Carter would have to make on her own. There would be no help from that quarter.

"All right," she said, hoping she was saying the right thing. "Refreshments, an hour in the catacombs, then back to the Stargate."

Partaking of refreshments was a well-established ritual here in the Sorority House hall. Malberg told Carter in a voice loud enough for Daniel to hear easily that this was custom among the Sisters, that whenever one returned from a journey they would be served crystal glasses of Elixir. Wine is what is looked like to Carter, a pale yellow liquid poured into goblets by one of Asirah's men. Two others placed the glasses on silver trays and served them first to the ladies and then, to SG's surprise, all of the men as well. Each of Asirah's and Zao's men took a glass in rehearsed fashion, no hesitation.

Malberg too took her goblet without a pause, sipping delicately. "I had this when I first arrived," she confided, again so that the rest of the SG teams could hear. "It's a delightful way to end a journey." _It's harmless_, was the unspoken part of her words.

Asirah and Zao sipped from their cups as well. O'Neill tried watching them. There was some undercurrent here; Zao was trying not to appear anxious. She was the youngest among the women sitting on the dais. O'Neill got on edge. But he couldn't see anything going on. This Elixir stuff was poured from one decanter into many glasses, and everyone in the room was drinking the same stuff. If the Sorority Sisters were planning on poisoning anyone, they were poisoning themselves as well. It wasn't the Elixir that was making his hostesses antsy.

He was just being paranoid, O'Neill told himself. Malberg wouldn't let them walk into a trap, would she? She might be as flaky as his own archeologist, but she was still Air Force. Besides, she was drinking it herself.

O'Neill cast a surreptitious look around the room. There was something else going on, and he wanted to be ready. How many people were there? Six sisters, including Asirah and Zao, and ten men, none of whom looked particularly athletic. 'House-broken' was a better description. The eight SG team members could walk out of here no problem, not even breaking a sweat or breaking out a zat gun.

O'Neill sipped at the drink, and found it tasted like insipid white wine. He started to comment politely, and thought better of it. He almost smiled instead, and noted that none of the other men in the room were reacting in any way to the beverage they had been given. Stolid, that was the word, he decided. The men behaved in a stolid fashion. There. Let Daniel try and beat him in Scrabble with that.

Malberg took Carter by the arm. "Come, sister. I'll take you down to the catacombs. Asirah and Zao will look after Colonel O'Neill and the others. You'll look over what I've found, and decide if it's worth pursuing."


	4. A Cup of Joe 4

_All right, it was in the drink_. _It had to be_. O'Neill felt woozy, unsteady on his feet.

He looked up at Asirah sitting on her throne on an elevated dais. She was watching him with an expression somewhere between disgust and admiration. "What did you do?" he croaked.

Asirah frowned. "More," she ordered. Two of her men moved to do her bidding, pouring another glass of the Elixir, holding the cup to his lips. O'Neill found himself unable to resist. Simply remaining upright was about all he could handle for the moment. He blinked, watching Asirah. "That one, too," she decreed, pointing at Daniel.

"Hey, wait a minute," Daniel objected. Good, O'Neill thought. Daniel sounded coherent. Daniel wasn't poisoned, or drunk on this stuff. _Maybe he can get us out of this_.

But one against ten wasn't a fair fight. Four men tackled Daniel by Asirah's command, forcing him to the floor and pouring more of the Elixir down his throat. Two more pinned O'Neill's own arms back to force more drink into his mouth, and he lost track of the other men of SG-1 and -14. O'Neill gagged, but the stuff went down his gullet.

He felt himself withdrawing from reality, losing all contact with himself. It was as though the part of himself that made him Jack O'Neill was being walled off from the rest of him. And every member of the SG teams were being affected in the same manner. Both Tarkov and Abelard were plopped on the floor looking ready to pass out. Even Teal'c wore a bemused expression.

Everyone except Daniel. Daniel Jackson kept struggling, despite the presence of the sisters' men who, at Asirah's direction, forced him to drink more and more of the pale yellow Elixir.

Asirah approached O'Neill. "Can you speak?" she asked.

O'Neill wanted to say yes. He wanted to tell her what he thought of her, in the most foul terms, and what he was going to do to get out of here. But not a word exited his lips.

Asirah nodded, satisfied. "Put them to work in the fields," she directed Zao. She glared at Daniel, who was still struggling in the arms of Asirah's men. "Take that one to the chamber and work on him. He may yet be converted."

* * *

Malberg stopped after walking some ten minutes through the maze of hallways. Every hall looked identical, built of strong grey stone and decorated with more of the pictures and writing that Carter knew Daniel would want to have pictures of. Carter longed for a camera, thinking that opportunities to return to these catacombs might be limited. Perhaps Malberg would be able to. She seemed to have assimilated this Sorority Sister culture very well, and would be an asset for the SGC and Earth, possibly even serving as a liaison if she didn't want to continue on SG-14.

But right now Carter was lost. After two left, three right, left, right, straight for ten meters—Carter really hoped Malberg knew the way back, because Carter was thoroughly confused.

"Is this it?" Carter asked, looking around. "This doesn't look like any catacombs I've ever seen. Where are the weapons plans that you wanted me to look at?"

Malberg smiled sadly. "There aren't any."

"Oh." This didn't make sense. Or maybe Carter didn't want to see the sense it made. "And you're telling me this now because—?"

"I'm really sorry that it had to be you, Sam." Malberg shook her head. "I was hoping that they'd send SG-5 or -6. They would have gone down without a struggle. They're all men, you see."

"No, I don't see, Captain." Carter tried to keep it professional, to mask the sinking sensation in the pit of her stomach. "What's going on here? What have you done?"

"I'm closing this world to Earth, Sam," Malberg confessed. "You can either help, or be a prisoner for the rest of your life. I'm betting you'd rather help."

"Help what?" Carter stayed confused. Her voice grew icy. "Explain to me what is going on, Captain Malberg."

"Call me Barbara," Malberg invited. "It's what you'll be calling me from here on." She settled into her lecture mode; she was, after all, an archeologist with a Ph.D after her name. "I didn't have to translate those pillars, Sam. Asirah and Zao already knew what they said."

"What do they say? What does this have to do with what you're doing?"

"You've seen the hill people, in the distance, Sam. Have you seen any women among them?"

"Primitive cultures don't send women on raids." Carter had been listening to Daniel's lectures. "Not usually."

"No. There weren't any women because the hill people are composed of men only. No women."

"That's impossible," Carter said automatically. "That's not a self-sustaining group. They'd be gone within one generation."

"These people have been living in the same way for at least three hundred years."

Carter stared at her. There was more to this story. "Go on."

"There was a war, about three or four hundred years ago."

"That's what the pillars say," Carter agreed. "Daniel translated that much. Tell me something new."

"It was a war between the sexes. Between men and women. And the men were winning. They used bombs, and guns, and weapons of physical power. They were overpowering the women and dragging them off to lives of slavery."

"You're the archeologist," Carter said evenly. "It's not politically correct, but it's the way things were in primitive cultures. Men held the power through physical strength, forcing women to keep house, marry, and bear children. Think of Helen of Troy, and all the women through the ages who were married off for political reasons. Does the phrase 'political dynasty' mean anything to you?"

"This wasn't a primitive culture, Sam," Malberg said. "They were an advanced culture, and still are in many respects. The women, unable to compete physically, came up with a biological weapon. One that attacked the Y chromosome."

"Keep going."

"It caused the male characteristics to intensify, especially those characteristics including aggression and short temper. It wiped out a substantial portion of the men within a week or two. The women didn't have to fight. The men killed themselves."

"Obviously it didn't kill all the men. Or the women too would have been gone within a generation."

"Right. These women also came up with a cure: the Elixir. It's harmless to us women, but they administer it frequently to the men under their protection. It subdues the aggressive behavior, makes the men docile and biddable. It acts like a tranquilizer. Both live here in perfect harmony. It's the perfect division of labor, with everyone benefiting."

"I wouldn't call it perfect," Carter observed. "The men around here work like slaves in the fields. We saw them on the way in. The women live in comfort. That's not equality. And it's certainly not perfect, Captain."

"Can you say that we have it any better on Earth?" Malberg shot back.

Samantha Carter looked her straight in the eye. "Yes."

"Maybe _you_ do, Major Carter. You've had the lucky breaks, working with men who actually respect you for what you can do. The rest of us have had to put up with crap. And you're pretty. Can you honestly say that your looks haven't helped your career, Samantha?"

"I've put up with as much crap as you have, Malberg, and maybe more. I've earned these stripes that I wear by being just as good as anyone around here. Not better, and not worse. Just as good. And I resent your insinuation that I've slept my way up the ladder." Carter tried to keep her temper. "I didn't need to."

"You keep on believing that, Major Carter, if it makes you feel better," Malberg told her. "But it won't make any difference. I'm not going back. And neither are you."

"Like hell, Malberg."

"Oh, you can walk out of here," Malberg said, "but I wouldn't count on getting all the way to the Stargate. Not alone."

Carter froze. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, every one of our teams drank the Elixir, which means that the rest of SG-1 and SG-14 are just like the other men on this planet: subdued to the point that they can't think or even talk. All they can do is take orders. And one of those orders is to not leave the fortress. So if you try to get to the Stargate, Major, all by your little lonesome, the hill people will descend on you like the ravenous pack of wolves they are."

* * *

"It's no use worrying, my dear," Asirah told Carter. "Lady Barbara has thought of everything. She's told us that even if your people send a rescue squad, all they'll find is a torn up campground, deserted, where your group was working. They'll assume that you all were killed by the hill people, and write this world off as hopeless." She beamed. "Here, do take a few more of these dainties. They're the first cooking efforts by that sweet little man of Barbara's that she calls Lt. Abelard. Aren't they good?" Asirah tucked a canapé into her mouth. "Do have some, Lady Samantha."

"I want to see Colonel O'Neill, Dr. Jackson, and Teal'c, and I want to see them now! And the rest of SG-14 as well!"

"All in good time, my dear. As soon as we certain they're ready. Not every man takes to the Elixir all that easily, although the majority of your men have. Lady Barbara is already training her three quite handily." Asirah placed another canapé in her mouth. "Are you certain you won't have one? I understand it's difficult to keep up that lovely figure of yours, but really, one won't hurt."

Carter tried to keep her temper under control, gritting her teeth. "It's been more than twenty-four hours. Take me to the rest of my team!"

Asirah looked at her with an artfully vacant gaze. "Just think if your face froze that way, my dear! Really, do cultivate a more pleasant demeanor. Anger is so unattractive." She reconsidered. "Very well. I'll have that O'Neill fellow brought in for you. We're thinking of seeing if we can train him to be an inside worker, instead of working in the fields. Although Lady Barbara tells me that he can defend the fortress most effectively, as can that Jaffa person. Does that lovely tall dark man really have a creature inside him?"

"Yes. And it's a dangerous creature. Once it's mature, it will try to take over this planet."

"Oh, that." Lady Asirah brushed the thought away. "Yes, Lady Barbara told me all about it. We'll deal with that when the time comes. Oh, look, here comes your man O'Neill."

The body was there, but no one was home. Carter could have wept to see the blank stare in the colonel's face. Asirah paraded him back and forth in front of her, demonstrating how well the colonel followed directions.

_If only General Hammond could see this_, Carter thought woefully_, he'd never believe it. Colonel O'Neill was always the worst for following orders._

"And Teal'c?" Carter asked, fearing the worst.

"Yes, the Jaffa. If you look out through the window you'll see him chopping wood. Such broad shoulders, and such strength! You'll be the envy of all of our sisters with those men at your disposal. By our customs, they belong to you. You brought them with you. We'll return them to you once they've been properly domesticated." Asirah sidled up to her. "Do you suppose you could loan O'Neill to me for the night?"

* * *

Malberg ushered O'Neill and Teal'c into Carter's suite that evening, starting to herd Raslow, Abelard, and Tarkov off toward her own chambers.

Carter stopped her. "Where's Daniel?"

"He's not your concern at the moment, Lady Samantha," Malberg said demurely. It sounded absurd coming from the broad-shouldered woman, but she clearly meant it. The Sorority House rules were hers now.

"The hell he isn't. Where is Daniel?" Carter demanded.

Malberg frowned. "Lady Zao is working with him."

"Which means?"

Malberg looked distinctly uncomfortable. "He's not taking to the Elixir well. He's resistant. She's trying to get him to submit. It's for his own good, you know," Malberg hurried on. "He won't last here without it. Not long."

"He'll do fine, captain," Carter snarled. "We all will."

"No, he won't." Malberg gentled. "You still don't get it, do you? Without the Elixir, all the men will go wild, just like they did during the war. Didn't you see how Abelard and Tarkov were behaving back at camp? Their comments were getting raunchier and dirtier, and they would have broken out into fights had we stayed there much longer. Even Major Raslow was out of character, letting them go on as he did. Your team hadn't been there as long as mine, Major, but you would have seen the same thing happening inside of a week. This is the best option."

"Leaving is the option," Carter said tightly. "We're going in the morning, _Captain_." She stressed the title; _you're a member of SGC, and you're under my command._

Malberg shook her head. "If you try to leave, Sam, without the Elixir, all your men will go wild. Ever hear of gang rape? You'll be lucky to be alive at the end of your journey, and so will Dr. Jackson even if you break him out. He's not one of them, not yet. They'll tear him apart."

"I want to see him."

Malberg shrugged. "It's not up to me. Lady Zao thinks that if he sees you, it will slow down her work." She indicated O'Neill and Teal'c, still standing in the corner, mindlessly waiting for instructions. "Take care of them. They're the ones who need you now."

* * *

Carter slipped out of her suite, leaving her shoes behind to be able to move more quietly in the tiled hallways. A light or two dotted corners, but the place was silent, only an occasional snore issuing forth from behind closed doors.

It had been one of the more humiliating things that Carter had had to do, getting both Colonel O'Neill and Teal'c bedded down for the night. Carter wondered if they were really in there, watching her verbally prod them into cleanliness and then onto the pallets put there for their use as if they were each three years old. It was appalling to see the lack of intelligence in either set of brown eyes. They didn't even have the sense to cover themselves with blankets. Carter ended up doing that.

But she hadn't seen Daniel in forty-eight hours now, forty-eight hours of watching O'Neill and Teal'c and the three men of SG-14 toil in the fields like silent slaves. There hadn't been any singing, no furtive looks, nothing to indicate that they were men and not robots. And no Daniel.

The place was asleep, and the only guards posted were at the outer fortress doors. Carter determined to do a bit of exploring without the company of any of the 'sisters'. She slipped out, silent as a ghost—or Teal'c, it was the same thing—and padded off along the corridors, listening for any signs of, well, anything.

Down, she decided. The upper suites were for the premier levels of authority in this Sorority, such as Lady Asirah. The more power, the more men one owned, the higher and more extravagant the suite. It was an effective power arrangement.

Which meant that the real work was done in the subterranean levels. Carter crept down the stairs, ever alert for the sound of passing bodies, but there was nothing. Everyone was asleep.

No, wait. There it was, the soft, gurgling noise of a human body pushed too far and trying not to admit it.

It sounded familiar, the thought of O'Neill 's voice saying _trouble magnet_ echoing in her mind. She crossed to the closed door on the left and peered through a corner of the barred window, standing on her toes to be tall enough to look in.

Carter couldn't see much for all the bodies in the way, but it was easy enough to tell that it was Daniel. He was the one suspended six inches off of the ground, cruel metal cuffs digging into his wrists with droplets of blood leaking out as a testament to his struggles. Lady Zao stood on a stepstool next to him high enough so that her head actually topped his by another foot. She caressed his face gently, an obscene counterpoint to the rest of the process.

"There, there," she murmured. Her voice was quiet, but Carter could hear her easily. There wasn't a sound coming from any of the three men assisting her. They simply did as they were told. "Drink the nice Elixir. It will make you feel better."

Daniel moaned again, wordlessly. Zao forced his head back, pouring the pale yellow liquid into his mouth. Daniel tried to spit it out, but she deftly cut off his air, stroking his throat as if he were a pet dog being encouraged to swallow a pill. "There now, all better. Let's see if we can't keep this one down, shall we?" Daniel struggled helplessly, fighting to inhale and not gag on the liquid in his mouth. Two of Zao's men hung on, thwarting his efforts to kick over the ladder that his tormentor stood on.

Carter heard a thwack! Daniel jerked, the scream gurgling in his throat, and stopped struggling; he'd lost the battle to spit out the Elixir. He hung loosely in his bonds, silent and shivering, while Zao gently wiped the sweat off of his face.

"We're making such wonderful progress," she told him. "See? Already you've given up talking. Now just look at me; show me with those lovely eyes that you've become a nice, biddable young man and then these men will let you down from here. They'll let you go to sleep. Wouldn't you like that? You've been awake for such a long time. And your poor feet. Did you know that, aside from your hands, the most nerve endings are in your feet? Look at yourself; you won't be able to walk on those feet for at least a week," she scolded. "Such pain, and it's all so unnecessary. Don't you think it's time to give in? There, that's a nice boy." Zao tilted his head to peer into his eyes, peeling the lids back. Daniel let her, his strength exhausted. "Um, very nice. All you have to do is listen to my voice. Nothing more. You don't have to respond to anything else. Just listen to the sound of my voice, and let your body take over. You do that, and you can take a nice, relaxing nap."

Carter assessed the odds: Zao she could certainly take down without thinking twice. The three men she wasn't so sure of. Two probably, but three plus Zao who would be shrieking at the top of her lungs? And then trying to escape in the dead of night dragging a certain archeologist who, from the sound of it, would scarcely be able to walk let alone run? As much as it horrified her, she didn't see any way to get Daniel out of here. Not yet.

_But there will be payback, bitch_.

Lady Zao must have felt eyes upon her. She lifted her gaze, and met Carter's stare. "Why, Lady Samantha. I didn't realize that you were still awake. Whatever are you doing here so late?" She opened the door to the subterranean room, drawing Carter in.

Carter swallowed. She tried to avoid looking at Daniel; one good look, and Sam knew that she wouldn't be able to keep the horror out of her expression. "I couldn't sleep." It was the truth.

"You shouldn't be down here," Zao scolded gently. "This sort of thing can be so distressing for a new sister. Lady Barbara told me that you would be upset."

_Lightbulb!_

_I can get us out of here. And I damn well will!_

"Lady Barbara doesn't know all that much about me." Carter tried to purr, to meet Zao's ever-so-reasonable tone. "I've admired your methods with men ever since she told me of them. May I help?" Her stomach turned over at the idea. She plastered an anticipatory smile onto her face.

"How thoughtful! I wish I could say yes, dear, but you see, I've all but completed the job. This man of yours is now perfectly docile, a delightful addition to the stable here. He just wants a bit of testing, to make certain, before I turn him back over to you. I'm in charge of all the training of the wild ones, you see." She trailed off, eying Carter thoughtfully. Carter tried to look eager.

Zao smiled, coming to a decision. "Take him down," she directed her men. "Gently, please! He's been through an ordeal. I don't think he'll be able to stand. That's a good boy, help him, take him under the arms and put him on that pallet there. Thank you, sweetie. He'll need a good deal of sleep to recover," she confided to Carter. She added, "what I'd like you to do, dear, is to try to get him to talk to you."

Carter didn't have to feign confusion. "I thought you were trying to get him to stop talking." _And wouldn't Colonel O'Neill pay dearly to have that technique!_

"Well, yes, dearie, but this is a test. He knows you from before. If he's trying to trick me, to pretend to have been gentled, he'll speak with you and I'll know that he needs a bit more work before he's ready to join our flock. Can't have a rogue in with the lambs, after all. Horrible thought. Do you think that you're up to it? It won't be too upsetting for you? He seemed like such a nice young boy. Once he's truly gentled, we might be able to use him in the house, perhaps as a bed mate occasionally."

"Can't wait," Carter lied, thinking that Lady Zao would be horrified at some of the things that Dr. Jackson had done in defense of SG-1. Somehow she just didn't imagine that Zao would properly appreciate Daniel's talents. Carter approached the pallet where the three men had deposited her teammate. Daniel lay in a disheveled heap, and she straightened him out before sitting down next to him.

"Daniel?" She shook his shoulder gently. "Daniel, wake up. It's Sam." _Don't wake up_, she begged, hoping he could somehow read her mind. _Don't talk to me_.

It seemed like it was working. Carter didn't know whether to be pleased or dismayed. Blue eyes stared blearily at her, unable to focus, unable to recognize her. The blank stare seemed eerily reminiscent of the non-expression presented to her by both O'Neill and Teal'c. Lady Zao was good at her job. Carter tried not to let her face give anything away.

Then, abruptly, the eyes focused. A spark of intelligence snaked its way through the cloud, and Carter saw clearly that Daniel knew her. He opened his mouth to speak. Her eyes widened with fear, keeping her back to Zao and her men, hoping that Daniel would recognize the danger.

Daniel sighed, and closed his mouth. Then—"Methyl xanthine." And that was all. He closed his eyes.

Carter's heart sank. _Poker-face_, she thought. _It's boys' night out, and Sam Carter is playing with O'Neill and the guys_. Not a shred of expression could show.

"What was that, dear?" Zao bent over the pair. "Did he speak?"

"He mumbled something," Carter admitted, "but it wasn't words. He didn't recognize me," she lied.

"Hm. I'm not so certain." Zao shook Daniel's shoulder, then again as the man didn't stir. "Wake up. Look at me," she commanded.

Blue eyes opened once again, all evidence of the brilliant mind behind them extinguished. Daniel allowed his gaze to wander all over the room, as if seeing it for the first time.

Zao slapped him petulantly. "Look at me," she demanded. Daniel's eyes flew to her face. "Who is this?" she asked imperiously, indicating Carter.

Daniel worked his jaw up and down a few times, but nothing came forth. _Silence is golden, Daniel,_ Carter kept praying. _Don't say anything, not even if she hits you again_.

Zao caught the signals before Carter. She grabbed a basin and shoved it under Daniel's chin a bare instant before the last dose of Elixir exited the man. Daniel trembled, helpless to control himself, shivers coming out between wordless moans.

Zao sighed, pulling Carter away, allowing the men to minister to their exhausted victim. "I just don't know, Lady Samantha. I just don't know. I think he might be gentled, but this continual vomiting worries me. How can he be cured if there is no Elixir in him?"

"Maybe he absorbed enough of it to have an effect," Carter suggested. "You've been working with him for what? Two days? That's a long time. You've obviously accomplished something."

"Mm. But those words he said concern me. He shouldn't be able to say anything."

"What words?" Carter asked innocently. "They didn't sound like words to me." _No, they sounded like chemical-ese. Of which I speak very little. I'm a physicist, Daniel, not a chemist!_

"Perhaps you're right, dear." Zao came to a decision. "I'll keep him down here for the night, just in case, and I'll check in on him in the morning. The boys here can keep an eye on him. You'd like that, wouldn't you?" She patted one of the men endearingly on the cheek, and he beamed. But not one spoke a word. "Make sure he stays awake," Zao directed them. "That will help him adjust, make him more pliable if the change isn't permanent. Nice cold baths, that's right, with the ladle from the bucket, every twenty minutes or so. Come along, Lady Samantha. You must be feeling tired by now. It's the middle of the night."

"I could stay here," Carter offered brightly. This might be her chance. "I could supervise your men."

"Couldn't think of it. We need our beauty sleep, don't we?" Lady Zao firmly drew Carter out of the workroom, leaving her miserable teammate behind. One of Zao's men obediently ladled a spoonful of icy water over Daniel, but not a sound came out of any of them.


	5. A Cup of Joe 5

Beauty sleep was the last thing on Carter's mind, pacing back and forth. She had to get them all out of here somehow!

She glared at Colonel O'Neill, sleeping in the corner as though he hadn't a care in the world. Actually, he hadn't—the Elixir had taken away all capacity for rational thought, which meant he _literally_ didn't have a care in the world. Which was a shame, because he was the best tactician of them. If there was a way out of this, he would have found it by now.

In fact, the only rational one here besides herself was Captain Malberg, and relying on that woman was asking for trouble. A court-martial would be the smallest part of Malberg's problems if they ever got back to Earth. 'When' they returned to Earth, Carter corrected herself.

_All right, let's restate this problem_. If it could work in physics, surely it could work in tactics. Goal: return both SG teams to the Stargate, plus or minus Malberg. Hmm, not a very achievable goal. _Restate it again, this time in realistic terms:_ Carter needed to get to the Stargate in order to get help to get the rest of the SG teams back by sending a couple of assault teams through and starting a war. Hmm, not so good. _Restate a third time_: return as many of both SG teams to the Stargate—nope. Colonel O'Neill had vowed never to leave anyone behind, and Carter wasn't about to break that vow on his behalf. Her first restatement was the one she would have to use.

All right, that meant getting all of the men together and directing them out on the road, _non compos mentis_, leaving their brains behind. At least she could count on their brawn, if Malberg were to be believed, and that would be a necessary thing to keep them all safe from the hill people. But that brought her to Malberg; how to get the woman to come along quietly? Malberg had made it quite clear that she was here to stay and would do anything to keep it that way including interfering with a superior officer. Carter decided to set that aside for the moment.

And what had Daniel meant by 'methyl xanthine'? He knew that Carter wasn't a chemist. Sure, she'd taken more than her share of chemistry classes—"Honk if you passed P-chem" was one of her favorite bumper stickers—but she couldn't translate those methyl groups into… into…into…

If Carter couldn't translate the phrase, how come Daniel knew it?

She stumbled onto the key, if only she could decipher it. Daniel had come across writings on the pillars, especially the larger one, that described the bio-warfare. Daniel had wanted Carter to see if she could recognize anything. Carter had put him off, knowing that chemistry wasn't her field of expertise. But Daniel had recognized the chemical term, and knew what it meant. Since Daniel's level of knowledge of all things chemical was far worse than her own, the term must be something that was familiar to the archeologist. Carbon-dating? Doubtful. That didn't sound right. Wait a minute, she almost had it, it was on the tip of her tongue…

Coffee. Caffeine. Java. Daniel's Joy Juice.

Carter could have turned cartwheels in her glee. 'Methyl xanthine' was the active ingredient in coffee. It was what gave coffee drinkers that caffeine high, that compensated for the need for sleep on those all-nighters, and that woke people up in the morning. Daniel practically lived on a diet of it.

And it would also explain his apparent immunity to the Sorority Sisters' Elixir. Caffeine addicts took days if not weeks to come down and get the caffeine out of their systems. Daniel had drunk cups of it every day for years, and had even kept a thermos of expresso by his side while he was translating the pillars here on P-6292. Everyone else had had their morning dose and no more.

"MajorCarter."

This time Carter did jump. Startled, she whipped around. "Teal'c?"

Teal'c looked around, intelligence once again in his eyes. "I do not recall coming here," he admitted, fear edging his voice. "What has occurred?"

"You were poisoned," Carter told him.

His face cleared. "Ah. My symbiote must have overcome the poison." Mystery solved. This world could resume revolving around its sun. He glanced down at the man beside him. "Colonel O'Neill?"

"Still under the influence," Carter said grimly. "I can't tell you how glad I am to have you back. Let me tell you what's been going on…"

* * *

"Gaah!"

It was the first sound O'Neill had made in seventy-two hours that sounded like the waspish colonel that she knew and respected. And it occurred shortly after hijacking Daniel's backpack from Malberg's own quarters, pulling out his stash of high octane coffee, and only having enough water to achieve a thick paste instead of a tasty brew.

But it did the trick.

"Carter?" The cough that followed was painful to listen to. "Water!"

"Sorry, sir. I haven't got any."

"Well, dammit, get some!"

"Sir, that's going to be a little difficult. How about a lemon drop?"

O'Neill snatched it from her hand, thrusting it into his mouth and sucking furiously on it. It was better, but only just. He glared at her.

"Explanation. Yes, sir." Carter knew what that look meant. And outlined her plan in as few words as possible.

O'Neill vented in unprintable language. "I always knew that archeologists couldn't be trusted."

"Daniel is an archeologist, sir."

"Exactly my point. Let's get Daniel and the rest of SG-14 and go home. I'd like to bring Malberg back with us, but those niceties can wait. Say, for a firing squad."

Teal'c frowned. "Did you not tell me, Colonel O'Neill, that firing squads are a thing of your past? That no civilized culture on Earth condones such actions any longer?"

"I'll make an exception. Let's go."

* * *

Asirah insisted that both O'Neill and Teal'c, accompanying Carter as her retinue, partake of the Elixir. It was part of the morning ritual, and every man in the ladies' Sorority House received his share. The meaning behind the ritual had become ferociously clear, but none of SG-1 could figure out how to avoid it. Refusing the Elixir on behalf of O'Neill and Teal'c would make it obvious that they had figured out how to turn the situation around, and, judging by Malberg's behavior, imprisonment would be the best the three could hope for.

_Good acting_, Carter thought, watching both O'Neill and Teal'c maintain the bland expressions of those around them, even while guzzling down the wine flavored Elixir. Teal'c she worried about—it would take a little time for his symbiote to neutralize the poison and he had steadfastly refused a dose of caffeine. But O'Neill had a full buzz on from chewing on coffee bean paste. By this time a gallon of Elixir wouldn't faze him. Both men stood there as stolidly as the rest, waiting to be ordered out by Lady Samantha, pretending to be as blitzed on the Elixir as every man in the room.

Drinking the Elixir satisfied Asirah. She gracefully dismissed Carter to explore the House and see what kind of work she could find for herself. "Do consider a bit of embroidery, my dear. You seem to have such a keen eye, and a knack for working with metal things." Malberg was not in attendance; presumably the woman was already seeing to her SG-14 teammates and hustling them out into the fields to begin the day's work after downing their own dose of Elixir. Asirah obviously expected Carter to do the same with her own men.

Carter wasted no time in ordering the two out into the hallway, imitating the way the other ladies directed their retinues. Once away from the Sorority Sisters, she halted.

O'Neill took charge, keeping his voice down. "Teal'c? You okay, big guy? Still with us?"

No answer.

O'Neill grunted. "Tell Junior to detox you a little faster, okay? Look, Carter, I get the feeling we should work real quick on this one. Let's split up; I'm going to round up the SG-14 boys in the field. I'll meet you near the front gate, since I don't remember any other landmark that I could reliably get to." He winced, looking at the new calluses on his hands. There was still honest dirt under his fingernails. "My memories of toiling in the fields yesterday are a little dim. As are cleaning up afterward."

"Yes, sir." Carter too winced. She hadn't been able to prevent that from occurring, and the dirt reminded her of her lack.

"You take Teal'c here for a little muscle and drag Daniel away from whatever mess he's in. For the first time I can't blame this one on him. Gotta blame it on his colleague. Not as good, but it'll have to do." He hefted the thermos of coffee. Carter had been able to dilute it to the proper consistency, although the water she had found was in the range of tepid.

No matter. As long as it worked.

* * *

O'Neill felt better once outside. The sunshine on his face wiped away the lingering cobwebs left over from the Elixir, and he inhaled deeply for the relief. He walked outside the stockade with the other men, aping their expressionless faces, just another one of the drugged slaves ready to do their bit in the fields. What kind of crops were they growing? He knew that he'd been there yesterday because Carter said so, but he hadn't a clue as to what plants were being worked on. Didn't matter; he and his weren't going to be around to enjoy the fruits of yesterday's labors.

He spotted Malberg, administering another dose of that hell-drug to Raslow. The major's tongue was almost hanging out of his mouth, he was so blitzed on the Elixir. Malberg wasn't taking any chances. Raslow was the most dynamic of her teammates, and the most likely to resist. Keeping him thoroughly soused was in Malberg's best interests.

O'Neill knelt, pretending to pull weeds. He certainly hoped that the green thing in his hands was a weed. Be a shame if it were a veggie. On the other hand, dinner, what he could recall of it, had been tasteless, so maybe getting rid of a few veggies wasn't such a bad idea after all. He waited until Malberg disappeared back into the fortress to approach the SG-14 team.

O'Neill didn't even want to guess at what Malberg was going to be doing inside. That was Carter's problem, and she would be on the lookout to prevent Malberg from preventing the SG teams from leaving. He wished that he could have been the one inside, hauling Daniel out of his cell, but unfortunately Carter was the clear choice for the job: not only did she know where Daniel had been stashed, she'd be able to travel inside the stockade without a multitude of women ordering her about. He paused to think; Carter had mentioned something about one of the older ladies wanting O'Neill's services for the night. Carter had declined on his behalf, something about planning to use him herself. O'Neill shuddered; if that meant what he was afraid that it did, he was definitely outta there! Bedding some of those old bats went above and beyond the call of duty. _No wonder they needed drugs!_

O'Neill maneuvered his way over to the other side of the field where Abelard and Tarkov were toiling silently. He glanced around. None of the women were in sight. They didn't need any as guards; every one of the Sorority Sisters _knew_ that their men were docile and tame. He pulled out the thermos and poured a swig. He pushed it at Abelard and whispered, "Here. Drink this."

Abelard looked at him dully as though he was from another planet. _I am_, O'Neill thought in exasperation, _and so are you_. With another quick glance around to make certain that there was no woman watching, he lifted the cup to Abelard's lips and forced the liquid past the man's lips.

Abelard coughed, and the coffee slipped down his throat. One down, two to go. Tarkov and Raslow got the same treatment, O'Neill sidling his way over to the other side of the field in order to treat the major. Only one woman had been left to supervise the work, and she carefully hid herself inside a hut three fields over, keeping out of the sun to protect her delicate complexion while she worked on her needlepoint. O'Neill suppressed a snort, grateful that his own major didn't insist on such antics. Trotting through the Stargate with a parasol was not his idea of mission parameters.

It only took fifteen minutes. O'Neill could tell the exact instant that Daniel's coffee kicked in on each SG-14 member. There was a sudden freezing of the shoulders, while an _oh, crap, where am I?_ thought crossed each man's mind. Then a hunch of those same shoulders, afraid that one of the women would catch him no longer farming while intoxicated, remembering dimly what happened over the last forty eight hours. And last: a gradual easing, and looking around to see just exactly what was happening currently.

Which was when O'Neill oh-so-casually sauntered over to each one of the three and quietly whispered, "end of the field, toward the stockade. Half an hour."

There was a barely noticeable nod, and each man bent back over his work. O'Neill moved on to the next. But all four slowly made certain that the weeding of the straight rows of strange purple veggies—_does anyone _really_ like eggplant_?—brought them closer to the point that O'Neill had designated.

* * *

Carter kept Teal'c close behind her, waiting for Junior to work its Goa'uld-ish magic and restore Teal'c to mental cohesiveness. And while she waited, she maneuvered them closer to Zao's work room in the lower depths of the Sorority House and one coffee-addicted archeologist who was probably regretting his addiction right about now. Getting the man out of this fortress was not going to be easy. Carter had caught sight of Daniel's bare feet last night. Zao had been thorough. Daniel would be lucky to be able to walk out of the Sorority House, let alone to the Stargate.

A sharp intake of breath alerted her that the Jaffa was once again sound. Carter chanced a look back. Teal'c looked grim. Yup, the Jaffa was back, and he was _pissed_. Carter was extraordinarily grateful that he was on her side.

There was a minor delay: Teal'c insisted on retrieving his staff weapon. There was a sullen smoldering in his demeanor, and an urge for vengeance. Teal'c looked quite capable of demolishing the Sorority House with his bare hands. Under the circumstances, Carter elected to let him have his toy, and confiscated the rest of the off-world weapons for good measure, stuffing them into her pack and shrugging it over her shoulders. O'Neill would be grateful to have his favorite P-90 back, and if the journey back to the Stargate was as fraught with danger as Malberg had said, they would need all the equalizers they could get.

She led them down the hallways to the Zao's work room. By the sounds of it, Zao was no longer convinced that Daniel had been converted to her way of thinking, and was endeavoring to rectify that matter. There were gentle high-pitched murmurings interspersed with cracks of a whip and the yelping of a familiar voice. Teal'c increased his pace, Carter barely able to keep up.

Carter grew grim. These women made a point of 'owning' men and 'rectifying' their behavior. Well, that man in there 'belonged' to Carter. And O'Neill, and Teal'c, and SGC, and Earth. Not Zao, and Carter had a little rectification of her own in mind, only for Zao and not Daniel. Appreciating the cultures of others was all well and good, but it was time for the Sisters to appreciate Carter's own culture. She slammed open the door.

Zao looked up. "Good morning, my dear…" Her voice trailed off as she took in Carter's expression. Her hands fell away from the archeologist's face, and Daniel took advantage of her distraction to spit out the Elixir she had forced into him, coughing hoarsely.

And Zao grew even more upset when she saw the light in Teal'c's eyes. And the staff weapon in his hand, coming to full power. "Oh, dear. Your man isn't feeling well anymore. We'll have to do something about that."


	6. A Cup of Joe 6

"I feel much better," Teal'c announced, a short while later. "Lady Zao was correct. Acting upon your plan was the correct option to improve my state of emotional and spiritual health, as well as the health of several others in this immediate area."

The afore-mentioned Lady Zao, now bound and gagged in her own work room with her own ropes and gags, struggled and tried to speak. Carter suspected that the verbiage being prevented from emerging was not as lady-like as her sisters would like it to be. Nor would her diction be as crisp as it usually was for quite some time to come: Carter rubbed her knuckles briskly. Zao's jaw had been hard but the satisfaction worth it.

"That's one for you, Daniel," she told her team mate. "You ready to get out of here?"

"I was ready yesterday." Daniel paused. "Uh, how far is it to the nearest Stargate?"

"You mean the one six hours away by foot?"

"Right." Daniel sighed, shivering. He rubbed one foot, trying not to dislodge the scab forming over the cuts on the sole. "I know I'm going to regret saying this, but could you hand me my boots?" He cautiously slid them on, trying not to give in to the pain, and stood up, all but falling over on Teal'c with the effort to keep his weight off of his feet. "I really hate this place. Got any coffee left?"

Carter gave him a sharp glance. Her teammate was on the edge of shock, and she doubted if he'd be able to walk to the stockade entrance, let alone the Stargate. Carrying him probably would be a little obvious. Clearly, transportation was going to be an issue. Carter looked around, hoping for an answer.

* * *

It wasn't easy, looking stupid.

Well, it was for some people. Tarkov sat down, back against the rough outer stockade wall, and half-closed his eyes, looking for all the world to be asleep. None of the incoming or outgoing men paid him any attention, and the women only harrumphed, although one went as far to make a comment on the low quality training techniques of the outlander women.

O'Neill ignored her. Likewise hooding his eyes, he'd seen other groups of men dawdling about, waiting for instructions from whatever woman had use for a slave. He tried to emulate his fellow men as much as possible.

Where were Carter and Teal'c? Had they succeeded in retrieving their archeologist from Zao? Carter had sounded pretty distressed over Zao's conversion techniques. O'Neill knew that as brainwashing went, Zao was strictly minor league but that didn't mean that Daniel would be functioning particularly well after a day or so of Elixir therapy. It was why O'Neill had sent Teal'c with her. If O'Neill heard a commotion, he'd mobilize his own troops and come running.

Though having the P-90 in his hands right now would be a comfort.

* * *

It was Malberg's bad luck that she ran into Carter a few doorways out of Zao's work room. Malberg, however, thought that it was Carter's bad luck. Malberg, after all, had six of the Sorority House men with her, all big and brawny types and all duly under the influence of the Elixir, and none burdened with anything or anyone to escort out into the sunshine beyond the stockade gates.

"Don't do this, Samantha." It was a dignified plea. Malberg meant it. "None of you are going home. Lady Asirah will put you into confinement, or, worse, throw you out entirely. She'll leave you to the mercy of the hill people, and they don't have any. Not for women. Please, Sam. Don't make this difficult on yourself."

"I could say the same for you, Captain Malberg." Carter put a slight but distinct emphasis on the title. _You're under my command_. "We're leaving. And you are coming with us. Back to Stargate Command."

Teal'c, being of a less trusting nature—or perhaps it was because he had grown up a Jaffa—carefully leaned Daniel against the corridor wall in preparation for battle. Daniel objected, insisting that he too could participate in the anticipated skirmish. Teal'c would have believed the archeologist if Daniel had had the energy to get the words out of his mouth. Teal'c swung his staff weapon around; it was too tight quarters to use the energy bolt. The club end would have to suffice. He looked forward to the ensuing scuffle, feeling the need for action.

Carter ripped her skirt off. It would be impossible to fight in the long, flowing gown. Malberg followed suit, and they stood there, eyeing each other, clad only in lacy white petticoats. Daniel, with ever the eye for culture, slid down the wall to arrive on his butt and observed the display and judged it better to stay silent. _Without_ the Elixir this time.

Malberg made the first move, lashing out with a not so dainty size twelve slipper. The shoe went flying.

One of Carter's arms blocked the kick, and the other the flying shoe. She returned fire with her own flying shoe. Neither combatant had intended to use footwear in quite that fashion, but neither was willing to forgo the unexpected bonus.

It would be unfair to characterize the battle as a catfight. Neither woman was untrained in martial arts, and both were using every skill at their disposal. Grabbing hair was likewise judged to be unworthy of these expert opponents. And both fought in silence, with only the occasional grunt to signal a successful blow.

Teal'c was in his element. He was given to understand that, although several women such as Major Carter were valiant warriors in their own right, the majority of Tau're women were not and would take it amiss should he feel it necessary to chastise them as he would a woman of Chulak. It had something to do with this 'chivalry' that DanielJackson frequently spoke of. Therefore he allowed Major Carter to take on Captain Malberg who had become their enemy, and Teal'c himself would have the joy of vanquishing all of these men of P6292. He considered it a fair division of labor.

Little enough joy there was. Two ran straight into the club end of his staff weapon and collapsed with no finesse. Most disappointing. His staff weapon was only just strong enough to prevail over their hard heads. Teal'c carefully put it down next to DanielJackson and prepared to eliminate the rest by hand. The next pair were dispatched by knocking their heads together. This was more successful, as the hardness of their heads cancelled each other out.

That left two, neither of which had the sense to run away. Teal'c shook his head in disgust. Normally he would applaud them for courage under fire, for standing up to a clearly superior force. But in this case he feared that their native wit had been robbed from them by the evil Elixir. The only merciful thing to do was to put them out of their misery as quickly and kindly as possible.

Her hair was mussed, and her petticoat torn, but Carter had all but won. Malberg was staggering, sense fleeing from her face, and blood trickling down from one corner of her mouth. Teal'c was pleased: CaptainMalberg had won several bouts against MajorCarter on the practice mat but here, where it counted, MajorCarter was superior.

Carter glared at her opponent. "It's women like you," she snarled, "who give women in the military a bad name. Get over it." She snapped out a spinning side kick. Malberg went down.

The battle was over. Carter staggered, leaned against the wall for support. She looked down at Malberg, then at Daniel who had quietly passed out. "Crap."

That was unlike the restrained Air Force major. Teal'c looked up at her in surprise. "MajorCarter?"

"Now we've got _two_ of 'em to tote out of here."

* * *

O'Neill quickly covered his look of surprise at his second in command. Carter was still wearing her flimsy ball gown, but the waist looked odd, as though it had been torn and then stuffed unceremoniously into the waistband of her panties in order to keep it from falling down around her ankles. Her blonde hair looked more flyaway than usual, and there was a darkening bruise on her cheek.

But Carter was every inch the dominant woman, ordering half a dozen of the Sorority's men to do her bidding. Teal'c was at her side, impassivity taking the place of the look of stupidity that most of the men wore. The men were dragging a small rickshaw behind them laden with rugs and boxes. The thing looked heavy.

"Be careful, sweeties," Carter simpered in tones that would do Lady Asirah proud. "Bring the carriage forward to the gate. Stop there, that's a good boy. Release the harnesses. Now, out to the fields with you, my dears, and don't stop until the sun goes down." The six from inside the Sorority House let loose of the reins to the rickshaw carriage and took themselves outside the stockade, heading for the fields. Not a one objected to their new assignment. Possibly they didn't even realize that they had new assignments.

Carter artistically looked around, spotted O'Neill and the others, and pointed. "There you are, my lovely menfolk. Take up the harness; we're going out for a drive on this lovely sunny morning."

O'Neill covered a grin. He could've sworn that Carter was enjoying ordering her superiors around. He could hear Raslow grinding his teeth; Raslow was senior to Carter by three years and had never let her forget it since he'd joined the Stargate program. This would be grating on him, as well as on Abelard and Tarkov.

But Carter had strict orders not to leave Daniel behind. O'Neill longed to ask her; Carter caught his gaze and slowly winked. O'Neill eased back, and took up the rickshaw harness. He didn't know where, but Daniel was among them. Maybe Carter had stashed him on the floor of the rickshaw, in which case O'Neill didn't mind at all being a beast of burden. Malberg, he didn't worry about. It would have been nice to have her back to stand a court martial, but he could live without that.

Teal'c solicitously handed Carter up into the rickshaw, and took his place as one of the upper-class men at the back. O'Neill scowled; was Teal'c not going to help pull Her Highness out of here? But he dropped the expression swiftly. There were other women approaching, heads in the air, and escape was next up on the menu. He took up the harness with the rest of SG-14 and hot-footed it out of there.

"Move it," he ordered quietly to the other men. "Double time." The four worked themselves into a cadence that moved the rickshaw quickly out through the stockade gate and onto the road. The gates closed behind them. O'Neill knew that Teal'c would watch and sound the alarm if pursuit broke out.

After a mile he slowed them down. The Sorority House could barely be seen in the distance. "Carter?"

"Don't think we'd better stop long, Colonel," Carter said, alighting from the rickshaw. "They'll be coming for us eventually. I don't think Lady Zao was all that pleased at the way I left her. They should have found her by now."

"I'm going to be real interested in your report," O'Neill grunted. "What happened to your shoes?" as Carter danced from one bare foot to the other.

"Long story, Colonel. Can we leave it for that report?"

"We'd probably better, Major. I'm assuming that Daniel is on the floor of the carriage and not up to running the marathon back to the Stargate? If we're going to use your coach to get out of here, I suggest that we get rid of your souvenirs and make better time. Those things are heavy." O'Neill gestured to the boxes and the pair of rugs on the roof of the rickshaw that looked substantially like the high-priced Orientals that he routinely saw in upper-class Washington homes. "We are not here on an interior decorating mission, Major."

"No, sir! But inside those rugs are Daniel and Captain Malberg."

O'Neill stared for a long moment. He raised one eyebrow. "Same carpet?"

"No, sir," Carter returned without any expression on her face. "Air Force regulations state separate accommodations for all personnel of different gender."

Raslow nodded slowly in agreement. "Wouldn't want to break any rules, Major." And added, with a grin, "'specially not with a civilian. Someone might get the wrong idea." He sighed. "Okay, boys, let's break 'em out."

* * *

O'Neill surveyed the pair of archeologists with dismay.

"Must have something to do with the profession," Raslow observed dryly. The rugs that had been used by Carter to wrap the pair in now covered a small part of the field on the side of the roadway. "Pretty standard for my archeologist and, from what I've read and heard, yours as well: semi-conscious, unable to walk, and puking their guts out. And this is what we get to haul back to the Stargate while watching out for hostile natives." Daniel leaned over to avoid splashing the carpet. Malberg looked like she was trying to detach her head before it exploded.

"Yeah, but mine isn't facing a court martial," O'Neill pointed out. "Have some coffee."

Raslow glowered. "Lucky guess, figuring out that coffee was the antidote to the Elixir."

"And it was mine that made the lucky guess." O'Neill paused for effect. "Not too shabby for a _civilian_. Right, Major?" He didn't miss the glare that Daniel sent toward both of them as he emptied the contents of his stomach on the side of the dirt road. "Ready to hit the road, Daniel?"

The afore-mentioned civilian gave him another anguished glare, but Malberg offered up an entire groan. 'Concussion' was what Abelard had diagnosed with all the field medical expertise he possessed. Given the circumstances, Major Carter had abdicated the role of medic in favor of the lieutenant. In addition to a concussion, Malberg had a bruise on her face the equivalent of Carter's as well as a spectacular black eye. Seeing that, Abelard gave Carter an unreadable look.

Raslow stood back, keeping his voice low. "You don't suppose Malberg was affected by the Sorority Sisters' leftover bio-weapon, do you? It got the rest of us."

"Um." O'Neill was noncommittal, remembering SG-14's behavior toward Daniel. Their behavior had improved after an application of expresso but not their attitude. And Daniel had told Carter earlier that the bio-weapon had been specific for men, according to the pillars of stone at the base camp. Chances of avoiding a court-martial on the grounds of temporary bio-weapon induced insanity didn't look all that good in the colonel's book. He shrugged. "Give her some of Daniel's coffee, too. Can't hurt."

"Colonel O'Neill!" Teal'c sounded the alert. "The hill people are gathering. An attack may be imminent."

O'Neill pulled out his P-90 and, ruefully, put it back away. It would be like mowing down a line of a dozen tin ducks at a carnival sharp shooting booth. Zats, then. He motioned for the others to do the same. It wasn't the hill people's fault that they were like this. Well, maybe it was. It was _their_ history, after all. "Which direction?"

Teal'c pointed. It was from the direction that Abelard was supposed to be watching. Well, O'Neill wasn't going to hold that against the lieutenant either, but he was going to recommend _again_ to General Hammond to have Teal'c teach a class in the field application of battle tactics. If the military types didn't like being told what to do by a Jaffa bulldozer with a snake in his belly, that was too bad for them. Teal'c knew more about taking out a battlefield than any three other men, human or otherwise.

"How many?" Expecting Teal'c to max out at ten.

"Many," Teal'c replied, white teeth flashing. "They will be bold with such numbers."

"_How_ many?"

"Enough so even _I_ will have trouble keeping up."

"Let's not stick around then." O'Neill hoisted Daniel up by the arm, letting the archeologist lean on him when the man suddenly turned white. "Into the carriage with you, Daniel. You can pass out there."

"Give me a zat gun, Jack." Daniel was down, but not out. "I may not be able to run, but I can shoot."

O'Neill peered at Daniel's bleary-eyed stare. "Right."

"I mean it, Jack."

O'Neill sighed. Dr. Jackson was preparing to go down with the ship, defending his friends, even if he had to kill himself to do it. Typical Jacksonian bluster that usually ended up with O'Neill bailing him out and Daniel getting the credit for saving whatever world they happened to be on that week. As long as they both ended up alive, he considered it a fair division of labor. He boosted the man onto the floor of the rickshaw. "This wasn't your fault, Daniel."

"Yes, it was," Daniel insisted, trying to sit up. "If I'd translated those pillars faster, deciphered what that chemical symbol was faster—"

"You're an archeologist, not a chemist," O'Neill started to say, then gave up. Daniel was past reason. O'Neill handed him the zat gun with the least amount of power left in it. "Don't shoot any of the friendlies."

"Right." Daniel settled into the carriage and passed out again.

Raslow accosted him next. "Malberg wants a gun."

"May I remind you that she's under arrest?"

"That's not going to make a lot of difference when they catch up with us." Raslow jerked his thumb at the dust cloud in the distance. The dust was pretty noisy, with shrieks and shouts indicating that the crowd was both extensive and exuberant.

"That's _if_ they catch up with us, Raslow."

"When," Raslow insisted. O'Neill knew the major was correct. "There's no way we can haul this carriage faster than they can run."

"Can she shoot straight in this condition?"

"Better than your civilian." There wasn't an ounce of humor or loathing in that bald statement, just plain fact.

O'Neill sighed and gave in. "Hah. They can hold another court-martial for me, for bad judgment and outright stupidity. Give her a zat. And keep an eye on her."

"Thanks." Raslow nodded. "All of SG-14 owes you one, Colonel."

"Just make sure we get out of this alive so's I can collect."

Raslow grinned humorlessly. "Right." He turned to his men. "Abelard, Tarkov, get the carriage. Move it out. Get that civilian out of the line of fire."

O'Neill winced.


	7. A Cup of Joe 7

Teal'c trotted up to O'Neill and Carter. Carter stumbled over a sharp pebble; she was barefoot, and her boots were back at the Sorority House. No one suggested going back after them. O'Neill almost put out a hand to steady her, felt Raslow's eyes on his back, and pulled his arm in. No, dammit, he did reach out to steady his second in command. He would've done the same for any of his people, male or female, civilian or military. He wasn't going to let Raslow harass him into ignoring any member of his team, just because she was a woman. He began to feel sorry for Malberg, putting up with these Neanderthals. Women didn't need to prove that they were any better or any worse than a man; they needed to be given the same opportunities to succeed or to fail on their individual merits. The military had made strides, but O'Neill wasn't naïve enough to believe that there wouldn't have been repercussions for Malberg if she'd pursued a grievance. He wondered what Carter would've done under the same circumstances. Hopefully O'Neill'd never give Carter the need to find out.

"We are being driven," Teal'c informed him. "The mob of hill people behind us are capable of greater speed. We are being herded to a specific spot."

"Not too many places to go," O'Neill pointed out. "There's only one road, and we're on it. Pulling Carter's carriage over broken ground will slow us down to a crawl and they'll catch us even faster."

"Nevertheless, we are being driven, most likely to a place where additional hill people are waiting. They intend to surprise us and take us with a minimum of difficulty. These hill people may not have speech, but they are not unintelligent."

"What are we going to do about it?" Carter wanted to know. O'Neill could tell that her bare feet were killing her. He also knew that she would rather die than admit it in front of SG-14. Suggesting that she ride in the carriage with Daniel was also out of the question. She would never forgive the insult.

Malberg, having recovered from her fight with Carter, was now running alongside the carriage, also in bare feet, grimly holding her zat gun to her chest. Raslow was keeping a eye on her, as he'd promised O'Neill.

"They're like wolves," Malberg said, trying to keep the sullen tone out of her voice. "Lady Asirah let me have access to their records. It documented the ravages of the war very well. All the women back at the Sorority House are required to study the records, to impress upon them how important it is to keep the men under the influence of the Elixir. The hill people are those men who have either wandered off and no longer receive the Elixir, or those few who proved resistant to it." She put a hand to the carriage to keep from stumbling over a stone. "The bio-weapon is a gas that was released into the air centuries ago. It now pervades the entire planet. Judging by our experience, it takes approximately a week to ten days for the effects to be felt. It completely destroys the reasoning faculties of men."

"Not so." Teal'c kept up with them easily, despite the fast trot that O'Neill had set as a pace. Abelard and Tarkov's tongues were hanging out, dragging the carriage behind them. "If they had rushed upon us at the first opportune moment, I would have agreed with you, Captain Malberg. This pincer movement of the hill people demonstrates that they are capable of thought and planning."

O'Neill started thinking out loud. "The Stargate is still, what, three klicks away? Abandoning the carriage won't do us any good; Daniel will still slow us down. Besides, we can always use it as a barricade when they come at us. I've always wanted to be the cowboys in a circle of a wagon train," he added sarcastically.

Teal'c brought out his patented look of puzzlement. "Colonel O'Neill, I do not see how it is possible to make a circle of carriages with but a single vehicle."

"It's a kid thing. Get Daniel to explain it," O'Neill started to say, then remembered that Daniel hadn't really had a childhood. _Half your life in Egypt, then the other half bounced from foster home to foster home didn't allow for much play time_. "Later," he ended up. "Can we get through the next wave of hill people?"

"It may be our best option," Teal'c mused, "although this does not speak well of our chances. I could seek out shelter in the hills. Perhaps we could hide until they disperse from boredom." His tone indicated what he thought of that possibility.

"What do you want to bet that they could track us down?" O'Neill replied ruefully. "Nope. Need a better plan." The P-90 was looking more attractive. It was supposed to be the last resort, and it might be. "All right, here it is. We need a way to break their pincer movement. Raslow, I'm leaving you in charge here. Keep your boys moving the carriage forward; we still may need it as a barricade. Carter, back him up. And by the way, feel free to come up with one of your spur of the moment bomb things that will miraculously make the opposition give up."

"Sorry, colonel. All out of bomb thing supplies. Left 'em with my boots."

At least Carter's sense of humor was still intact. She'd need it, riding herd on Raslow and his band of rowdies. O'Neill felt bad. He was leaving her with the tough side. Again. "Teal'c, you and I will see if we can't whittle down the front end. You up for this, big guy?"

"As always, O'Neill."

* * *

At least the hill people were easy to spot. O'Neill saw an even two dozen of them, hiding among the bushes almost half a mile from the Stargate. He weighed his options again: if worse came to worst, he could send Teal'c back through the 'Gate to get a couple teams of Marines to clean up the mess. Naw, not really a good idea. Top speed, it would take them half an hour to kit up, and by then SG-1 and SG-14 would all be sprinkling the hillsides with fresh blood.

Then he saw another dozen, off to the left. And another dozen farther on. And Teal'c generously pointed out the two dozen that he'd missed down the hill.

Okay, stealth was clearly the name of the game here. Take out as many as they could without anyone noticing. Two against sixty? Piece of cake.

Rock hard fruit cake that had gotten passed around too many times during the holidays. _That_ kind of piece of cake!

* * *

Abelard swore. "How many of them are there?"

"Keep going, Abelard," Raslow ordered harshly. "There are more behind us than there are in front. Hopefully O'Neill and the Jaffa are taking them out of our way. We're going to be moving fast." That last comment was more of a wish than a statement of fact.

"They'll be on us inside of fifteen minutes," Carter predicted. She'd exchanged her zat for a P-90, and Raslow had done the same. Zats were fine for small numbers, but no one had anticipated the quantity now trailing them. But they only had the two P-90's. It was all that Carter had been able to stuff in her pack during their hasty escape from the Sorority House.

"Abelard, Tarkov, start looking for some place defensible. Something with at least two sides protected," Raslow commanded.

Carter nodded. No matter how well O'Neill and Teal'c did, the little band of SG teams were not going to get much closer to the Stargate, and certainly not close enough to drag Daniel through keeping them all in one piece. She even spotted some of the hill people carrying bows and arrows, and pointed them out to Malberg.

The archeologist stared. "That shouldn't be happening. Not according to the records back at the Sorority House. They shouldn't have enough intelligence to fashion weapons. Certainly not anything more sophisticated than hurling rocks."

"Guess the ladies were wrong," Raslow grunted.

"Guess I was wrong about a lot of things."

Tarkov called out, "Major, how about that spot up there?"

'There' turned out to be a copse of trees with several fallen down over the past couple of years to form a natural barricade on two sides as well as a partial barrier to shield them from arrows and other hand-flung missiles from above. Carter helped Daniel from inside the coach before the others toppled it over onto its side to provide more protection. She looked out at Raslow, blue eyes big and worried. It was a tight spot to be in.

Raslow eyed the pair balefully. He had his entire team there. Carter and Daniel were the outsiders.

Then—"You got any more of that coffee of yours, Daniel?" Heavy sigh.

Dr. Jackson flashed a grin despite his injuries. "Sure. You want it lukewarm, or tepid?"

* * *

_Ten down, fifty to go_, O'Neill chanted in his head. He and Teal'c had silently stolen up on the hill people one by one, selecting those who hid in singletons and to the rear, taking out as many as they could without any of their friends noticing. The hill people were good at hiding, but the Jaffa had done this when his life was truly on the line, and O'Neill tended not to slouch either. It was slow going, but each hill man neutralized was another person that the rest of the team didn't have to battle through.

He wondered how they were progressing, if the rear echelons had caught up with them yet. He rather doubted it, but there was no way to know as of yet. Both O'Neill and Teal'c had turned off their radios rather than chance a static noise giving away their positions and intentions. O'Neill intended to withdraw in another few minutes to a spot where he could check on his little lambs unheard and unnoticed by the opposition.

He sighed. Back to work. There were two sequestered underneath that bush. He decided to get greedy and get them both at once. Teal'c had already beat him out by handling a duo without getting caught. O'Neill wasn't about to let the Jaffa steal a march on him. O'Neill would never hear the end of it.

Teal'c signaled to him. O'Neill looked up. Teal'c pointed: _over there_.

It was the prettiest sight that O'Neill had seen in days. There it was, big as life and twice as ornery: the Stargate. The DHD sat in front of it, waiting for someone to punch in the address that would take them home. They'd gotten there. Worst case scenario, someone could head home and request reinforcements to come back pronto and pick up whatever pieces of SG-1 and -14 were left.

Now to get the others past these last hill people. But Teal'c was gesturing again, this time with concern. He waved back the way that they'd come. The main SG body was in trouble.

O'Neill never asked how Teal'c knew these things. 'They are in the wind, O'Neill,' he would say, followed by, 'these are but simple tasks to one who has been trained by Master Bra'tec.' And then Teal'c would smile demurely, knowing that it drove O'Neill crazy.

There was no smiling now. O'Neill pulled out his zat gun and began firing with deadly accuracy. He toggled his radio on. "Raslow! Carter! Sit-rep, now!"

"Under fire, sir." Carter's voice came through immediately. O'Neill could hear the P-90 in the background, and swore. It must be bad; Raslow and Carter were only going to use it as a last resort. "Bows and arrows, and they're throwing rocks and spears. Primitive, but effective, sir. Tarkov took one in the arm; bloody, but he can still fight. How's it looking in your direction, sir?"

"We're cleaning 'em out, Carter. Can you hold on? We're not far from the 'gate."

"We're trying, sir. We'd appreciate it if you didn't take too long—_holy Hannah! That was close!_"

"Carter!" O'Neill's heart hit the dirt.

"I'm okay, sir. If you don't mind, I'm going to sign off, sir. I have a spear to return to its owner."

"Ten minutes, Carter, then make a break for it. Tell Raslow."

* * *

"Yes, sir. Carter out. Raslow!" she yelled, clicking off her radio. "Colonel says make a break for the Stargate in ten."

"Is he crazy?" Raslow yelled back. "We're too far away!"

"We can't stay here," she shouted back. "They'll overrun us any minute!"

Raslow looked around. His fellow major was right. More hill people were swarming over the crest, and would be on them in mere moments. He made his decision.

"Abelard, Tarkov, get Jackson. Move out; Malberg, go with them. Don't look back. Carter and I'll lay down covering fire. On three: one, two, three!"

Raslow and Carter stepped out of the rapidly dwindling cover of the carriage, both P-90's spitting lead. The onslaught of hill people wavered and slowed, then, with a shout of rage, moved forward. Abelard and Tarkov fired furiously with zat guns, the metal growing hot in their hands.

Malberg grabbed an armful of archeologist in one hand and her backpack full of Sorority House scrolls and documents in the other and took off, dodging arrows and stones raining down over their heads. Daniel gasped as his feet hit the ground, but that was it; the man swallowed everything else and kept pounding the dirt road. He never noticed the pack on his own back. Carter did: an arrow blossomed there just moments later. _Effective body armor_.

"Fall back!" Raslow ordered. The other four were making progress. As one, Raslow and Carter stepped backward, trying to keep back the cresting wave of shouting hill people. Their shots slowed, now to keep the hill people from advancing, conserving their ammunition.

Raslow suddenly stopped firing, used his P-90 to bat a flying boulder out of the air. It would have connected with Carter's head.

She spared him a glance. "Thanks."

"My gun's jammed!" Raslow snarled suddenly. "Damn!"

"Fall back," Carter ordered. "Give me your spare clip."

"Used it up. How's your zat?"

"Out of power."

"Running sounds like a real good idea right about now," Raslow opined.

"Gotta agree with you, major."

"Ladies first, major. And last one in is a rotten egg, to quote my six year old son whom I would very much like to see again under better circumstances. Move!" They broke for it.

* * *

O'Neill tossed his zat gun away in disgust. Worthless piece of Goa'uld crap. Almost no power in the things, no way to recharge on a battlefield. Didn't the Goa'uld think that protecting their troops with decent weaponry a smart thing to do? Well, actually, no they didn't. _You seen one Jaffa, you seen 'em all. Just breed another brat or two._ O'Neill pulled out his knife. It was the only working weapon left to him. That, and his hard head.

He'd lost sight of Teal'c. The Jaffa had swirled over to the left, taking out mass quantities of hill people as he went. Given enough time, he could have taken on the entire battlefield, but that was the problem. They didn't have enough time. They had a couple of injured archeologists and the rest of their teams to pull out and back through the Stargate.

O'Neill thumbed his radio. "Raslow? Carter?"

"Here." Raslow didn't waste time on courtesy. "We're pinned down; me and Carter. The others got away, we think. Can you see 'em?"

"Not yet."

"Go for them; don't worry about us. We're holed up in a den, and we think we've shaken them. They're ignoring us. Go for my people and your boy. Get them out of here, then come back for us with reinforcements. I think we'll be okay. Raslow out." Raslow clicked off the radio. He turned to Carter. "Think he bought it?"

Carter glanced around the skimpy shelter. She was squeezed into the back and Raslow barely in front of her. Hidden, no. Safe, no. Okay, no. But the hill people did seem to be bypassing them, heading toward the Stargate and their teammates. "Sure," she lied.


	8. A Cup of Joe 8

O'Neill felt something unpleasantly solid in the middle of his back.

"Do keep your hands where I can see them, friend," a pleasantly cheerful voice said. O'Neill wasn't fooled. The cheerful tones just barely masked the steel in the voice. He raised his hands in apparent surrender, his knife in his right.

He didn't get the chance to use it. Someone behind him relieved him of it, and briskly frisked him, finding the other smaller frog-sticker hidden in a leg sheath that he rarely bothered with unless all else failed. He was weaponless.

"Who are you?" O'Neill asked. It couldn't be one of the hill people. They were all non-verbal and uncivilized, remnants of the war. Had another group from another world come through the Stargate while they weren't looking?

"That's the odd thing about it, chap," the voice said. "I don't really know. There I was, enjoying the sun and having not a care in the world. I'd even found a delightfully robust berry bush, so I wasn't even worried about where my next meal was coming from. Then I took a swallow of that rather horrid paste that your fellow with the spectacles enjoys, and here we are, conversing like gossipy old ladies. What do you think of that?"

"I think that's a pretty amazing story. Care to elaborate?"

"Would if I could. My memory seems a bit short term at the moment. I was somewhat hoping that you could explain."

"Not in my job description." _Where the hell was Teal'c?_ O'Neill took a wild guess. "Try Dr. Jackson. The fellow with the spectacles. He likes explaining things."

"Yes, I thought so. We'll be able to ask him soon enough. That is, if your chaps decide to stop shooting up the place."

"My chaps—?" O'Neill picked up his jaw. "You're the ones who attacked us!"

"Did not. Here we come, over the hill, as polite as you please, asking to make your acquaintance, and you start shooting at us. Quite unfair, I'd say, since you have automatic machine guns and all we have are sticks and stones."

"And bows and arrows," O'Neill pointed out. "Let's not forget them."

"Really? I don't remember those."

"Can I turn around? And put my arms down?"

"Why, yes, of course. How rude of me. Please do so."

"Thanks." O'Neill made a show of stretching. The man in front of him was large, a few centimeters taller than O'Neill himself, with a shock of long and matted brown hair that kept falling into his eyes. The cultured voice with which he addressed O'Neill was quite out of keeping with the dirty animal skin that he used to keep warm. O'Neill pushed on. "What do you want? Besides killing us."

"Killing you? Heavens, no. Why ever would you think that? Oh, yes, right, the sticks and stones."

"And bows and arrows," O'Neill reminded the unkempt man. "Uh, you got a name? That's right; you can't remember. How about if I just call you John Doe?"

The man frowned. "Sounds somewhat banal. Couldn't you think up something a little more urbane?"

"It's a tradition, back where I come from." O'Neill declined to explain. He had more important matters to deal with. "How about you get to the point? What do you want?"

"Oh, didn't I say anything about that?"

"No. You must have forgot."

"Probably," the unkempt man said cheerfully, his demeanor totally out of keeping with his appearance. He brushed long and stringy hair out of his face. Something wiggly fell out of it, but John Doe ignored it. "We want more of that horrid paste."

"We?"

"Yes, we. As in, all of us. You see, we found this bottle sort of contraption that your bespectacled fellow dropped as he was dashing away. Took us at least fifteen minutes to figure how to open it, don't you know, and then we had to think up a way to filter out the broken glass bits that were jiggling about inside after we'd banged it up against a rock trying to pry the bloody top off. About a dozen of us tried tasting that horrid paste stuff, and it had this most _amazing_ effect. All of a sudden we could _think_ again, and it was an absolutely _wonderful_ sensation! You don't know what it's like, living up here in the hills with only babbling idiots to listen to…"

"Oh, I think I have a vague notion of that," O'Neill replied, thinking of all the lectures that Daniel had subjected him to. And Carter. _Let's not forget Carter and wormhole physics_. He didn't know which one was worse. "You want more?"

"Really? You have more?" John Doe's filthy face lit up. "Yes! Absolutely yes! I know the taste leaves something to be desired, but perhaps if we flavored it with a bit of honey, or put it into a pill of some sort. Now that we've got all this thinking ability it would be a shame to let it go to waste. You say your Dr. Jackson fellow takes his straight?" Doe shuddered. "Ferocious character."

"You don't know the half of it," O'Neill muttered, then offered, "He does dilute it a bit and drinks it scalding hot. Some people think it's the reason to get up in the morning."

"Hm." Doe didn't seem convinced. "However, on to business. Do you think you could ask your chaps to stop shooting at mine?"

"Nothing easier." O'Neill unlimbered his radio. "Just get yours to stop."

"Yes, well, there's the difficulty. Good fellows, really, but once you get them going it's a bit challenging to move them into a different topic. If yours all just sort of sit down, mine will just howl around for a bit and then simmer down."

O'Neill stared at him, considering. What the hell, someone has to make the first move. He toggled on the radio. "Teal'c?"

"Yes, Colonel O'Neill?"

"Go to ground, big guy. Hide out for a few. I've got new intelligence—" _and I use the word _intelligence_ advisedly—_"that 'out of sight, out of mind' would work very well here. Stop attacking, and they'll forget all about you pretty quick."

"Very well, O'Neill." O'Neill could hear the disappointment in the Jaffa's voice. Obviously the big guy had been having fun, although even _he_ must have been getting a bit winded. There were a _lot_ of hill people in them thar hills.

O'Neill switched over to where Carter was. "Raslow? Carter?"

"Still here, colonel." Raslow sounded tired and stressed but intact. "We've holed up, waiting for them to come get us. But they're ignoring us. Kind of freaky."

"New intelligence, major. Stay put. They'll keep ignoring you as long as you don't shoot at them. They're after something else."

"Oh? What?"

"Their morning cup of coffee." And couldn't resist adding, "it's a few hundred years overdue."

All right, on to the bunch that he was really worried about. Lts. Abelard and Tarkov were in charge of the foursome, and, however often he broke his own rule, O'Neill really did like to be a stickler for protocol. Especially when it worked in his own favor. Keeping his hands where John Doe could see them—despite all the pleasant bantering, neither trusted the other—O'Neill tabbed on his commlink, breaking radio silence yet again. "Abelard? Tarkov? You there?"

"Colonel!" Pause for a moment while a stone projectile whistled by and smashed on something solid. "You better be calling with good news. We 're about to be over run."

"I am, lieutenant. You can stop fighting."

Another pause, this time for Abelard to wonder unspoken if the commanding officer of this mission had lost his mind. "Say again, sir. Did you say, 'stop fighting'?"

"That's affirmative, lieutenant. Cease hostilities. Lay down your guns. Stop shooting. And above all, take a coffee break."

There was dead silence over the radio link. Then a burst of static. "You're breaking….Say a-… -breaking-…" And, underneath the words, came a contralto shriek of "He wants us to…? Is he out… his f-… _gourd_?!"

O'Neill could just see the re-enactment to be performed at their court martial: _Abelard turns to Tarkov and Malberg: "Can you believe what you just heard? O'Neill wants us to lay down and die?"_

_Tarkov: "Not a chance, Abelard. You must have heard wrong."_

_Abelard: "Not me. You heard it, too. What're we gonna do?"_

_Malberg: "These people are animals! They'll tear us to shreds! The proof is right here in these Sorority House documents. O'Neill is crazy! He wants to kill us."_

_Abelard: "He's going to sacrifice us to protect himself. He and the Jaffa are going to run off to the Stargate. What're we gonna do?"_

_Tarkov: "Are you kidding? We fight!"_

O'Neill pressed the send button. "I'm not kidding on this, Abelard. This is for all three of you. Put down your weapons. That's an order."

Silence answered him. Obviously he was supposed to think that the radio was out. He stabbed the send button again. "Abelard! Tarkov! Malberg! Answer me, dammit! I am trying to save your sorry asses!" _All right, last chance_. "Daniel! If you can hear me, make coffee! This is not a joke. Make the biggest pot of coffee that you've ever made, and serve it to the jokers who are trying to turn you into liver pate!"

John Doe surveyed O'Neill with a quizzical look. "Sounds like your chaps follow your orders about as well as mine. Shall we get over there and see what they're on about?"

O'Neill gave him a wordless growl.

"Now you're starting to sound like I used to."

* * *

Raslow suddenly perked up his head. He sniffed the air. "What's that smell?" 

"I don't smell anything," Carter lied. What she really smelled, stuffed in the back most corner of the small cave with Raslow gallantly in front of her, was a strong odor of fear and sweat, both of which emanated from her fellow major. Since she suspected that she didn't smell any better, she politely chose not to make it an issue. At least not until they'd both had a shower.

"No. Take a whiff, Carter. I smell something. Smells familiar." He peered around, looking for the source. "And all the hill people are heading in that direction."

Carter poked her head out over Raslow's brawny shoulder. "They're ignoring us. Is that a good sign?"

"I'll take it in lieu of any other." He thumbed his nose. "Let's follow the hill people and find out what's going on."

* * *

The hillside was suspiciously peaceful as O'Neill, Teal'c, and John Doe approached. Every hillock and mound boasted a hairy rump sitting upon it, with the owner of said hairy rump conversing calmly and politely with his neighbor. Doe greeted several with a 'hello there, friend. Your name again? I've quite forgotten mine,' and received similar salutations in return. Even Teal'c found himself hard-pressed to avoid wrinkling up his nose at the odor of unwashed human. 

The most remarkable thing about it all was the quietude. Each and every one of the men, in between witty bon mots, sat with a chunk of wood or clay busily fashioning a crude drinking vessel with a fervency quite out of character for the sense of calm that pervaded the area. Some of those who had apparently had more time to work on their project were actively involved in carving some sort of identifying mark onto the cup, an activity that O'Neill found somewhat obtuse since none of them seemed to remember their names.

At the bottom of the hill grew a long line of those unkempt men, all with serviceable cups clutched in their grubby hands. An occasional shoving match broke out, only to be quickly quashed by their neighbors, and the errant parties then hung their heads in shame as they resumed their places in line, gentlemanly gesturing for the other to precede them.

O'Neill didn't know what to think. So he walked toward the head of the line.

One man tried to stop his party. "Excuse me, sir. The line forms back there."

"It's all right," Doe assured his fellow hill man. "He's their employer."

"Oh. That's all right, then. Carry on. Fine job. Keep it coming."

O'Neill looked at Doe. "'Keep it coming'?"

Doe grinned and pointed.

The line ended at the bottom of the hill, in front of a small cave-like affair with a broken rickshaw on its side perched precariously in front. The rickshaw had several boulder-sized holes in it, and a few of those boulders could be seen in the interior, having smashed through the outer walls of the rickshaw to end up sitting on a cluster of splinters and dirt. Little tinkling bells danced in the gentle breeze, a reminder that the vehicle once belonged to the Sorority Sisters.

A portion of that defunct rickshaw was being used to fuel a fire as well as create a convenient lean-to from which to hang a soot-blackened pot. Daniel Jackson was presiding over that pot from his comfortable seat on a stump hauled over to the spot for the occasion, stirring the brew and sending the most delicious odor of freshly prepared coffee through the air. O'Neill found his mouth watering despite the circumstances.

Captain Malberg had the situation well in hand. Her Sorority House gown was stained and torn, she was barefoot, and her hair nothing short of a disaster, but she served the coffee to the hungering men with all the aplomb of the mistress of a five star establishment so upper-class that the proletariat never knew it existed. Abelard and Tarkov were her serving men at arms, keeping the line orderly and people waiting their turn for a bare half cup of Daniel's high octane caffeine packed drink.

"That's it, you're next, do hold your cup out so that Dr. Jackson can give you your share," she said. "Drink it down, you'll be pleased at the effects. No, I'm sorry, you can't have seconds yet, not until everyone has had their opportunity. Believe me, if we can, we'll be bring back a great deal more very soon." Malberg glanced up, did a double take. "Oh! Colonel O'Neill. I didn't see you standing there." She looked around with a guilty air, and shamefacedly held out a cup. "Coffee, sir?"

There was a muted growl from behind her: some several hundred coffee-starved men objected to someone cutting ahead in line.

O'Neill got the point. "No thanks, Malberg. You keep going. You and Daniel seem to have the situation well under control. I take it you got my message, Daniel?"

"Yes, sir, he did," Malberg interrupted. "Have you ever listened to that man talk when he wanted you to do something that you didn't think was the right thing to do?"

"He wouldn't stop," Abelard chimed in from his place as line monitor.

"Kept on talking until we gave in because we couldn't stand listening to him any more," Tarkov chimed in. "You put up with this _all the time_, colonel?"

O'Neill gave Daniel a sardonic look. "Just the joys of having a _civilian_ archeologist on my team. Nice work, Daniel."

The younger man tried not to glare. "Thanks. I think." The glare finally came out, trying not to whine. He finished pouring his current cup of coffee, handing it to the filthy specimen in front of him, and turned back to his commanding officer. "I'm three days behind on both coffee and sleep, Jack. Can we go home _now_?"

* * *

"Sir?" 

Raslow was bewildered. His men were likewise bewildered, so he spoke on behalf of them all. The air-conditioned air of the SGC was all around them, with showers and coffee and comfortable beds for both the men and the women of the base. Both SG teams had taken full advantage of those facilities prior to the debriefing held by General Hammond.

"That's right, Major Raslow, I'm sending SG-14 back to P6292 with a turn-around time of forty-eight hours. I realize that won't leave you much space for R & R, but Dr. Frasier tells us that we have a time window. We have to provide coffee service for a thousand before Dr. Jackson's remnants wear off, and we're back to square one." General Hammond leaned back in his comfortable chair and observed the effect of his pronouncement.

"You're asking SG-14 to become a… restaurant service, sir?" Raslow tried not to sound dismayed.

"Sorry, major, but there isn't any Starbucks that's cleared for off-world duty." The general's tone was tart, even if his words were not. "I know you have your heart set on becoming a general, son, but for the moment you'll have to settle for general manager. At least until we can get a permanent trading post set up."

"And Captain Malberg, sir?"

Hammond turned to look him squarely in the eye. "Colonel O'Neill recommended that she head up the negotiating team. Seemed to think that she was the only one who could handle it. That the rest of the SG teams were somewhat _persona non grata_ with the ladies of the Sorority House." He shuffled the papers in front of him, not letting Raslow see what was written there.

"O'Neill recommended her?" Raslow refused to let his jaw hang open, though it clearly wanted to. Yeah, there was O'Neill's signature on the bottom of the papers in front of General Hammond, upside down to Raslow's eyes but still unmistakeable.

O'Neill cleared his throat. "That's _Colonel_ O'Neill, major. And, yes, I did."

"But…" O'Neill could hear the rest of the question die in Raslow's throat: _what about the court martial?_

"It was a toss up," O'Neill said easily. "But I finally decided that it would be a waste of a good archeologist for her to languish in a cell. Think you can keep her in line, major?"

"Yes, sir!" started to snap out. Then Raslow hesitated. "I think so, sir."

"Major?"

"Well, sir, Malberg seemed pretty taken with that John Doe fellow. She went native once. She might do it again."

"Is he worthy of an SGC captain, son?" That from General Hammond.

"Sir?"

"Pretty plain, major. Is the man acceptable to become a part of the family?"

Raslow considered. "Yes, sir, I'd have to say so."

"Then, here." O'Neill tossed over a small sack of something hard and round.

"Sir?"

"Open it," O'Neill invited.

Raslow did so, pouring out dark brown orbs onto his hand. A familiar scent stole out. "Coffee beans?"

"You're going to need a supplier, major, if you expect your coffee house to succeed. I hear it takes a while to grow coffee bushes, and sending bags of coffee through the StarGate on a routine basis sounds a bit wasteful. You'll be in charge of the coffee plantations; I suggest that you might want to consider giving it as a wedding present to Malberg and her intended. SGC is just giving you a little seed money to start the process." He thought again. "Then again, it's not really money. But they are real seeds." O'Neill smiled. "Enjoy."

The End


End file.
